Brands are still measuring the wrong things—it’s time to fix that

Today, every agency seems to have a playbook ready to help brands achieve their goals. And while these can offer useful pointers, they often miss a critical first step—getting brands to truly consider how their proposition resonates with their audience. Without this foundation, organisations risk setting KPIs and initiatives that measure performance in a vacuum rather than aligning with the needs and expectations of the people they serve.

By definition, KPIs exist to track performance against business goals. They shape strategies, dictate priorities, and determine success. Yet, in the marketing world, they often come with built-in limitations.

For one, KPIs are frequently shared across multiple teams but are not always prioritised in the same way. When departments chase conflicting goals, mediocrity becomes the norm. Moreover, for the sake of convenience, teams attach measurable metrics to KPIs—but not all data is created equal. A prime example is social media metrics, which are largely designed by platforms to highlight their own value. If brands rely solely on these, they risk optimising for a platform’s business model rather than their own.

Recent global events illustrate how data can tell one story while people experience another. Take the US economy: Official metrics from the Federal Reserve indicate strong performance and resilience. Yet, many Americans report feeling financially worse off than they did four years ago, even in the midst of a pandemic.

The problem isn’t that KPIs are inherently wrong—it’s that people base their perceptions on personal data points that traditional metrics often overlook.

To bridge this disconnect, brands need more nuanced KPIs that capture audience sentiment beyond surface-level metrics. PR, for instance, often relies on PR value, awareness, message pull-through, and sentiment—all of which provide little direct insight from target audiences. On the marketing front, metrics like ROI, reach, search volume, engagement, and Net Promoter Score (NPS) offer some audience input but tend to focus on existing customers rather than broader audience shifts. The result? A feedback loop of confirmation bias that reinforces what brands want to believe rather than what they need to learn.

Despite all the emphasis on KPIs, there is surprisingly little literature on what makes a brand relevant to its audience. Most discussions on relevance centre on content optimisation or general brand attributes, rather than practical ways to measure and maintain audience alignment.

Currently, brands attempt to understand their audiences through research and studies, but these are typically confined to product development or post-mortem reviews. This means audience insights influence the creation—or demise—of a product but do little to evolve it or help brands keep pace with shifting consumer mindsets.

The challenge lies in transforming relevance into a measurable, actionable framework. Brands need a way to track and adapt to audience sentiment in real time, rather than relying on static or retrospective data. Some—including Team Lewis—have now developed their own relevance framework, which evaluates a brand’s applicability, purpose, and importance. This approach allows brands to break down their initiatives, assess whether they truly resonate with their audience, and build bespoke KPIs that drive meaningful engagement.

Customer-centricity has been a buzzword for decades, yet the industry has failed to deliver on its promise. In many cases, businesses have moved on, chasing new frameworks while neglecting the fundamental principle of audience relevance. But real impact—both financial and operational—comes from brands that commit to evolving alongside their audience.

By embracing audience-driven KPIs, businesses can move beyond outdated metrics, make better decisions, and create strategies that are as relevant to their customers as they are to their bottom line.

Calvin Siew is Singapore head of client services for Team Lewis.