As a marketer, you probably use various metrics to measure and evaluate your marketing performance and success. Metrics such as website traffic, social media followers, email subscribers, and video views can help you understand how your marketing efforts are reaching and engaging your target audience. However, not all metrics are equally useful and meaningful.

What are vanity metrics?

Some metrics may look impressive and flattering, but they may not actually reflect the true value and impact of your marketing activities or that of your business. These metrics are known as vanity metrics.

Vanity metrics are metrics that make you look good to others, but do not help you understand your own performance in a way that informs future strategies. These metrics are often easy to measure and manipulate, but they do not indicate any real return on investment (ROI) or customer behavior. Examples of vanity metrics include:

• Website traffic: The number of visitors or sessions on your website may seem like an important indicator of your website’s popularity and reach, but it does not tell you anything about the quality and relevance of your traffic, or how your traffic converts into leads or customers.
• Social media followers: The number of followers or fans on your social media accounts may seem like a measure of your social media influence and authority, but it does not tell you anything about the engagement and loyalty of your followers, or how your followers interact with your brand or products. * Email subscribers: The number of subscribers on your email list may seem like a measure of your email marketing potential and growth, but it does not tell you anything about the deliverability and open rate of your emails, or how your subscribers respond to your email campaigns. * Video views: The number of views on your videos may seem like a measure of your video marketing reach and impact, but it does not tell you anything about the retention and completion rate of your videos, or how your viewers take action after watching your videos.

Why you should avoid vanity metrics

Vanity metrics may be tempting and satisfying to track and report, but they can be misleading and harmful for your marketing strategy and goals. Here are some reasons why you should avoid vanity metrics:

• They do not help you make data-driven decisions: Vanity metrics do not provide any actionable insights or feedback that can help you improve your marketing performance and outcomes. They do not tell you what works and what does not work, what to do more of and what to do less of, or what to change and what to keep. They do not help you optimize your marketing tactics and channels, or allocate your marketing resources and budget effectively.
• They do not help you align with your business objectives: Vanity metrics do not align with your business objectives, such as increasing sales, revenue, or profit. They do not show you how your marketing activities contribute to your bottom line, or how they generate value for your business and your customers. They do not help you demonstrate your marketing ROI, or justify your marketing spend and efforts.
• They do not help you build trust and credibility: Vanity metrics do not build trust and credibility with your stakeholders, such as your management, your team, your partners, or your customers. They do not reflect the true quality and impact of your marketing work, or the real needs and preferences of your target audience. They may even damage your reputation and credibility, if your stakeholders discover that your metrics are inflated, manipulated, or irrelevant.
• They can be open to subjective interpretations: Vanity metrics can be interpreted in a variety of methods, thus creating confusion instead of giving a clear direction towards efforts.

How to avoid vanity metrics

To avoid vanity metrics, you need to focus on metrics that are relevant, meaningful, and actionable for your marketing strategy and goals. These metrics are often called actionable metrics, as they help you take action and make decisions that improve your marketing performance and success. Here are some tips on how to avoid vanity metrics and use actionable metrics instead:

• Define your marketing goals and objectives: Before you start measuring and evaluating your marketing performance, you need to define your marketing goals and objectives, and align them with your business goals and objectives. Your marketing goals and objectives should be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. For example, instead of having a vague goal of increasing website traffic, you can have a SMART goal of increasing website traffic by 10% in the next quarter, by targeting a specific segment of your audience, using a specific channel or tactic, and measuring a specific metric or outcome. * Choose your key performance indicators (KPIs): Based on your marketing goals and objectives, you need to choose your key performance indicators (KPIs), which are the metrics that indicate whether you are achieving your goals and objectives, or not. Your KPIs should be relevant, meaningful, and actionable for your marketing strategy and goals. For example, instead of using website traffic as a KPI, you can use website conversion rate, which measures the percentage of your website visitors who take a desired action, such as signing up for a newsletter, downloading a white paper, or making a purchase. * Track and analyze your data: Once you have chosen your KPIs, you need to track and analyze your data, using various tools and methods, such as Google Analytics, dashboards, reports, and experiments. You need to track and analyze your data regularly and consistently, to monitor your marketing performance and progress, and to identify any trends, patterns, or anomalies. You also need to track and analyze your data in context, by comparing it with your benchmarks, targets, or competitors, and by segmenting it by various dimensions, such as source, channel, device, or audience. * Take action and improve: Based on your data analysis, you need to take action and improve your marketing performance and outcomes. You need to use your data to make data-driven decisions, such as what to do more of and what to do less of, what to change and what to keep, or what to test and what to implement. You also need to use your data to optimize your marketing tactics and channels, and to allocate your marketing resources and budget effectively. You also need to measure and evaluate the impact of your actions and improvements, and to iterate and refine your marketing strategy and goals accordingly.

Conclusion

Vanity metrics are metrics that make you look good to others, but do not help you understand your own performance in a way that informs future strategies. They are often easy to measure and manipulate, but they do not indicate any real return on investment or customer behavior. Examples of vanity metrics include website traffic, social media followers, email subscribers, and video views.

To avoid vanity metrics, you need to focus on metrics that are relevant, meaningful, and actionable for your marketing strategy and goals. These metrics are often called actionable metrics, as they help you take action and make decisions that improve your marketing performance and success. To avoid vanity metrics and use actionable metrics instead, you need to define your marketing goals and objectives, choose your key performance indicators, track and analyze your data, and take action and improve.

By avoiding vanity metrics and using actionable metrics, you can improve your marketing performance and outcomes, align with your business objectives, and build trust and credibility with your stakeholders.

The Indian lending market is one of the fastest-growing and most diverse in the world, with a huge potential for financial inclusion and social impact. According to a report by Boston Consulting Group, the Indian lending market is expected to grow from $1.2 trillion in 2019 to $3.5 trillion by 2024, driven by the increasing demand for credit from individuals, small businesses, and rural segments.

Problems in the lending industry

However, the Indian lending market also faces several challenges, such as high operational costs, low credit penetration, complex regulatory environment, and high credit risk. Traditional lending models rely on manual processes, limited data sources, and rigid criteria, which result in inefficiencies, delays, and exclusions. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the situation, as lenders face increased defaults, liquidity crunch, and changing customer behavior.

To overcome these challenges and tap into the opportunities, lenders need to adopt innovative and agile solutions that can enhance their efficiency, scalability, and profitability. This is where generative AI, a branch of artificial intelligence that can create novel and realistic content, such as text, images, audio, and video, comes into play.
What can generative AI do?

Generative AI can transform the Indian lending landscape by enabling lenders to

• Automate and optimize the lending process: Generative AI can automate and optimize various steps of the lending process, such as customer acquisition, verification, underwriting, disbursal, and recovery. For example, generative AI can create personalized and engaging marketing campaigns, analyze alternative and unconventional data sources, such as social media, e-commerce, and geolocation, to assess creditworthiness and risk, generate customized loan offers and contracts, and create interactive and empathetic chatbots and voice assistants to facilitate communication and collection.
• Enhance fraud detection and prevention: Generative AI can enhance fraud detection and prevention by identifying and flagging suspicious patterns and anomalies in the data and transactions. For example, generative AI can detect fake or tampered identity proofs and documents, such as Aadhaar cards, PAN cards, and bank statements, by comparing them with the original or authentic versions. Generative AI can also detect fraudulent or malicious behavior, such as identity theft, money laundering, and cyberattacks, by analyzing the behavioral and transactional data of the customers and the lenders. * Innovate and diversify the lending products and services: Generative AI can innovate and diversify the lending products and services by creating new and tailored solutions that cater to the specific needs and preferences of the customers. For example, generative AI can create dynamic and flexible loan products that adjust to the changing circumstances and requirements of the customers, such as income fluctuations, emergencies, and life events. Generative AI can also create new and niche lending segments and markets, such as peer-to-peer lending, microfinance, and social impact lending, by leveraging the power of the crowd and the network.

Challenges in using generative AI

Generative AI is a new frontier for the Indian lending industry, as it offers immense possibilities and benefits for both the lenders and the customers. However, generative AI also poses some challenges and risks, such as ethical, legal, and social implications, data quality and security issues, and human-machine interaction and collaboration challenges. Therefore, generative AI needs to be adopted and implemented with caution and responsibility, ensuring that it is aligned with the values and goals of the stakeholders and the society.

I am not even going to talk about the compliance risk and the risk of using a pre-cooked model which may not even be similar to the target audience.

Generative AI is not a magic bullet that can solve all the problems of the Indian lending industry, but it is a powerful and promising tool that can augment and enhance the existing capabilities and solutions. Generative AI can help the Indian lenders to become more efficient, scalable, and profitable, while also serving the customers better and faster.

However, smart and crisp solutions are yet to be seen in the Indian market, and this is an area of work for us at Homeville.

I had first written about Skyrim when it was released in 2011. I tried out the game after more than a decade, both the vanilla and then with mods. Here is my experience playing this game after more than 10 years after its release.

What is Skyrim?

Skyrim, the fifth installment of the Elder Scrolls series, was released on November 11, 2011. The game was a huge success, selling over 30 million copies worldwide and receiving critical acclaim for its open-world design, rich lore, and immersive gameplay. Skyrim also became a phenomenon in the modding community, with thousands of fans creating and sharing their own content, ranging from simple tweaks and fixes to massive overhauls and expansions.

Modding? What is that?

Modding is the practice of modifying a game’s files, usually with the help of tools and software, to alter or enhance its features, graphics, gameplay, or content. Modding can be done for various reasons, such as improving performance, fixing bugs, adding new functionality, creating new stories, or simply expressing one’s creativity and vision. Modding can also extend the lifespan and replay value of a game, as well as foster a vibrant and supportive community of modders and players.

Skyrim and the creation kit

Skyrim was designed with modding in mind, as Bethesda Softworks, the developer and publisher of the game, provided official tools and resources for modders to use. The most prominent of these tools is the Creation Kit, a software that allows modders to edit and create new game data, such as quests, characters, items, locations, scripts, and more. The Creation Kit is based on the same engine that Bethesda used to develop Skyrim, and is compatible with the Steam Workshop, a platform that allows modders to upload and download mods easily.

In addition to the Creation Kit, Bethesda also released other tools and resources for modding Skyrim, such as the Skyrim Script Extender (SKSE), a program that expands the scripting capabilities of the game; the Bethesda Archive Extractor (BAE), a tool that allows modders to extract and view the game’s assets, such as textures, meshes, sounds, and animations; the Bethesda Performance Textures, a set of optimized textures that improve the game’s performance; and the Skyrim High Resolution Texture Pack, a free DLC that enhances the game’s graphics.

Skyrim mods over the years

Skyrim modding has evolved and grown over the past 10 years, with modders creating and releasing thousands of mods of various types, sizes, and quality. Some of the most popular and influential mods include:

• SkyUI, a mod that overhauls the game’s user interface, making it more user-friendly, customizable, and compatible with other mods.
• Unofficial Skyrim Patch, a mod that fixes hundreds of bugs and glitches that Bethesda never addressed, improving the game’s stability and compatibility.
• Alternate Start – Live Another Life, a mod that allows the player to choose from different scenarios and backgrounds for their character, instead of following the default intro sequence.
• Ordinator – Perks of Skyrim, a mod that revamps the game’s perk system, adding hundreds of new and unique perks for each skill tree, allowing for more diverse and interesting builds.
• Apocalypse – Magic of Skyrim, a mod that adds over 150 new spells to the game, covering all schools of magic and offering new possibilities for combat and exploration.
• Immersive Armors, a mod that adds over 50 new sets of armor to the game, each with their own style, stats, and crafting recipes.
• Immersive Weapons, a mod that adds over 200 new weapons to the game, each with their own design, stats, and distribution.
• Interesting NPCs, a mod that adds over 250 new characters to the game, each with their own voice, personality, backstory, and quests.
• Legacy of the Dragonborn, a mod that adds a massive museum to the game, where the player can collect and display thousands of items, artifacts, and relics from the game and other mods, as well as embark on new adventures and quests.
• Beyond Skyrim, a mod project that aims to recreate the entire continent of Tamriel in Skyrim, with each province having its own landscape, culture, history, and quests.

These are just some examples of the many mods that have been created for Skyrim over the past 10 years, and there are still more being developed and released every day. Skyrim modding has become a hobby, a passion, and a culture for many fans of the game, who have contributed to making Skyrim one of the most modded and replayed games of all time. Skyrim modding has also inspired and influenced other modding communities, such as those of Fallout, The Witcher, and Dragon Age.

Disadvantages and Cons of modding

Skyrim modding is not without its challenges and limitations, however. Modding Skyrim requires a lot of time, effort, skill, and patience, as well as a decent computer and internet connection. Modding Skyrim also involves dealing with technical issues, such as compatibility, performance, crashes, and bugs, which can sometimes be frustrating and discouraging. Modding Skyrim also requires a lot of respect and cooperation among modders and players, as modding is a collaborative and creative endeavor that relies on sharing, crediting, and supporting each other.
Give it a whirl!

Skyrim modding is a remarkable phenomenon that has enriched and transformed the game and its community in many ways. Skyrim modding has shown the power and potential of modding as a form of artistic expression, entertainment, and education. Skyrim modding has also demonstrated the passion and dedication of modders and players, who have kept the game alive and relevant for 10 years and counting. Skyrim modding is a testament to the enduring appeal and quality of Skyrim, and the love and appreciation that fans have for it.

Don’t take my word for it, just head on to Nexus and get Vortex and try out Skyrim after a decade!

At Homeville, when we started active product development, JIRA and Confluence were our go to tools. As the technology team grew from a 4 member team to a 65+ member team, one of the things that became a slow burn for me was to see the monthly user-wise licensing model for both of these tools.

JIRA was free for the first 10 users, then for the next 40 odd users that we added, we were paying roughly 400 USD per month! Similarly, Confluence was free for the first 10 users, but at a team of 40 or so, our bills from Atlassian was matching our bills from AWS!

Shifting from Atlassian

One of the quickest shifts we did was to find an open source self hosted version of JIRA. OpenProject was the perfect solution. The benefit of self hosting these systems was that access to all the proprietary analysis and research in the form of features and requirements was now within our AWS account and thus in a much more secure environment. The added benefit of localization within the country also meant any form of regulatory compliance was also much better aligned.

It took some scripting, but using a python script to connect to JIRA and OpenProject (OP) both, we were able to import the projects, tickets and sprint informations from JIRA to OP.

Wiki or independent system

One of the key decision that we had to undertake was to see if the documentation was to be done within the OP, or was it to be hosted separately? One option was to continue with Confluence albeit under a smaller user base.

We finally decided to try things with a self-hosted WordPress. However, we did tweak quite a lot of things, listing all of these.

Customizing WordPress

Going into this project, I knew that this would be a continuous evaluation and test work. Sort of a rinse and repeat exercise. Hence, choosing WordPress was the obvious choice.

Custom Taxonomies

We setup PODs because of its ability to quickly add custom post types, custom taxonomies and easy relationships between the two. Using this we could easily keep a separate taxonomy for our credit platforms and systems.

Authorization and Access

Since we were on Microsoft o365, we setup an active directory plugin to enable tech team users to login using their o365 credentials. This also seamlessly created their user ids on WordPress and enabled access without the trouble of invites and importing users.

We also wanted a login gate to enable authorized access to our content. Thus a simple membership plugin to restrict content access was setup.

Similarly, we also setup a plugin that disabled the REST API so that the content wasnt available over unauthorized REST API calls.

We also setup a NACL rule on our AWS to prevent access to the system outside the office premises.

Integration with OpenProject

We also setup easy shortcodes that would pull data from OpenProject agile sprints and display those within a post, allowing for product teams to create east release notes followed by the sprint backlog with links to the OpenProject stories.

This was done using a custom plugin integration that we wrote. Obviously this could not have been possible without OP not having a REST API.

Document Templates FTW

This entire process would not have been successful without the new WordPress editor and its ability to create document template types within the post.

We took our most commonly used Confluence templates and set them up exactly in the same manner in WordPress. This enabled our product teams to seamless shift from Confluence to WordPress.

The fact that most discussions can also be captured as minutes with the exact time of publishing as the time when the meeting occurred also meant that we could also have a temporal view of our product development.

Thus with these simple and easy tweaks we shifted from Confluence to a self hosted WordPress.

After attending WordCamp Mumbai this year, I decided to keep attending more WordCamps throughout India. As luck would have it, Ahmedabad was just around the corner and I did my booking. WordPress is also used as a quick fix for landing pages in advertising, and hence I thought it would be a good exercise for Harshaja to attend, hoping that she meets some competent (and affordable) WordPress agency to handle the development side of things at 13 Llama‘s end. That, and the super interesting schedule that Ahmedabad had put up.

Getting to Ahmedabad

We chose to take the early morning flight to Ahmedabad. That just meant that the day of the event would be super long for us. Since we hardly knew any folks in the city, this was an easy decision to make. I personally wanted to stay and do some site seeing in this city, but no harm – we could always hop by on one of our annual trips to Vadodara.

The flight was short and getting off the airport and into the cab was one of the smoothest exits we have had. Carrying everything in an overnight handbag does have its advantages!

Venue: Babasaheb Ambedkar Open University

One of the supercool things that struck me during this event was the way Babasaheb Ambedkar Open University (BAOU) was setup. Within a 30 minute drive from the airport, the venue is a sprawling university campus that had access to multiple halls, classrooms, and a great open space where the attendees could congregate in.

I honestly cant imagine the cost of such a large sized venue in Mumbai.

Attendees

We thought that instead of checking-in at the hotel, we would directly attend the event and during the breaks in the afternoon do a quick run to the hotel and finish the checkin process. Thus we directly stopped over at the BAOU campus.

At a little bit earlier than 8am, I was expecting the organizers to be just about gathering and deciding on how they want to execute the rest of the day. To my surprise, there was the beginnings of a crowd already gathering.

What ended up as a small crowd quickly grew to a large congregation, with over 1100 attendees, the WordCamp Ahmedabad 2023 was the second largest WordCamp in Asia, second only to WordCamp Asia!!

I could not help but compare this large audience to what we had in Mumbai. This was more than double the audience of Mumbai and then some!

Talks and Speakers

One thing that always strikes me is that every WordCamp I learn something new. Something that helps me in the future years. Even this time, one of the highlights of the event was the last talk by Nirav Mehta. This one was on public speaking and one of the reasons why I had made sure that the both of us were there to attend.

Some of the other notable talks were on Link Building by an agency owner, Custom Blocks by Amartya Gaur, Yoast’s acquisition by Chaya Oosterbroek. It’s uncanny that even when my functional domain has completely changed, I still took a bunch of learning back from the event!

Ahmedabad, you beauty!

As the day came to an end, I could not help but get overwhelmed with the vibrant PHP developer community that I could see in Ahmedabad. It’s definitely larger and more vocal than the Mumbai community and thus would always be one of the factors for us if we were to open a secondary development office. In fintech, I am seeing more companies shift their technical operations to T2 and T3 cities like Ahmedabad and how!

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