I have a cousin, who, as a sophomore in high school, is the best (or second best) player on her basketball team.
And she just had a particularly good week of ball. So good in fact, that she’s up for player of the week by some local media company.
As such, the family group chat has gone wild:
She texted us all today asking for us to vote for her, and we all agreed.
But here’s the catch:
You can vote as many times as you wish.
So this isn’t about voting on who actually was the best, it’s about guilt tripping your family members into wasting as much time voting as they can.
My family is playing along. Everyone in my family has voted hundreds of times.
And I just don’t quite understand the entire idea behind this poll where you can vote as many times as you want.
The only logical conclusion I can come to is that it’s jacking up the overall page views of the local media site—making it more attractive to advertisers.
But here’s the thing…
Besides a few accidental clicks on ads, I have been so laser focused on voting for my cousin when I load up the page, that I’m not even acknowledging the ads. The few times I accidentally clicked on it, I exited the page faster than a chihuahua chasing a cat.
And it all just gives me a bad case of vanity metric vibes:
When my cousin wins player of the week (which she will and should’ve if’n it were a more honest poll), it’ll be nothing more than a vanity metric. Sure, she played well, but the playoffs are coming up and she’s gonna need to repeat it.
The advertisers are getting duped into low-quality traffic that’s jacking up their ad costs and lighting their money on fire.
Even the local media company who set this up is artificially raising their page views.
I just don’t get it.
Alas, I still voted on it more times than I’d like to admit because, well, to quote the great Vin Diesel character, Dominic Toretto:
“There's always room for family.”
Immoral of the story?
Vanity metrics are great for filling you with external validation. But when it comes time to pay the bills? The bank teller’s only gonna laugh when you bring your email open rate, your player of the week award, or your page view numbers to her.
Much better to bring the loot instead.
Hit reply to learn more about how you can bring the loot to your bank.
John
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