Growing up with the metric system, I lived in a world of logic. Ten millimeters make a centimeter, a thousand meters make a kilometer. It’s neat, it’s tidy, and it makes sense.
Then I moved to Los Angeles.
Suddenly, I’m flying down the 405, and the sign tells me my exit is in “half a mile.” My brain immediately goes into a frantic, high-speed translation mode. Wait, is that 800 meters? No, 400? Do I have time to change lanes or am I about to end up in Long Beach? That split-second “brain lag” is exactly what happens when I look at a brand’s marketing dashboard for the first time. We think we’re all looking at the same map, but half the time, we’re speaking completely different languages.
The Great Translation Error
In marketing, we love to use different words to measure the same distance—and sometimes, we use the same word to measure completely different things. It’s enough to give any founder a headache.
The “Same Word, Different Planet” Problem: Take “Engagement.” On Instagram, it might mean a “double-tap” from someone who didn’t even read the caption. On your email list, it means someone actually opened a “love letter” from your brand and spent time with it. If you treat those two “Kilometers” as the same thing, your strategy is going to feel very disjointed.
The “Same Goal, Different Name” Mess: One platform calls it “Reach,” another calls it “Unique Impressions,” and your web developer is over here talking about “New Sessions.” At the end of the day, they are all just trying to describe a human being discovering your brand for the first time. We’re all just measuring Miles, but we’re arguing over the spelling.
Read more: My Post-Facial Monster Face & The Long Game of Perspective.
Don’t Just Read the Numbers—Interpret the Behavior
When my team and I perform a Strategic Analysis, we aren’t just looking at the digits. We’re looking for the behavior behind them.
According to a report by Gartner, nearly 60% of marketing data goes unused because teams don’t understand the context. It’s not that the data is missing; it’s that the “brain” of the company hasn’t learned how to translate the KM into Miles yet.
If you don’t have a system for how you read these numbers, your dashboard becomes a high-tech Rorschach test. You see “growth,” I see “Tactical Drama”—where you’re spending a lot of money to move very fast in a circle.
Developing Your “Internal GPS”
As a former educator, I always told my students: You don’t need more data; you need better definitions. Before you celebrate a “win” on your next report, ask your team: What “system” are we using to measure this? Are we measuring vanity (the Kilometers that make us feel fast) or are we measuring impact (the Miles that get us to the destination)?
Stop letting your dashboard gaslight you. Once you learn the language, you’ll never miss your exit again.
To better translations and smoother drives,
Lara
