Moving beyond vanity metrics and maximising marketing ROI
Panel 1 explored the challenge in distinguishing between vanity metrics and those that genuinely reflect marketing ROI and performance. In a landscape flooded with metrics, dashboards, and data, marketers must learn to identify what truly matters.
Campaign Middle East hosted its second event of 2025, Campaign Breakfast Briefing: Talent and Technology 2025, at The Metropolitan Hotel, Dubai Media City, on 11 April.
Organised by Motivate Media Group in partnership with EternityX, Fusion5 and Seedtag, the session brought together client-side marketers, agency experts, and adtech leaders to tackle the pressing issue of marketing measurement in a tech-driven world (photo gallery).
The first panel discussion was moderated by Natale Panella, Head of Digital at Fusion5; the panel included:
Alka Winter , Vice President ‑ Destination Marketing and Communications, Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority (RAKTDA)
Vice President ‑ Destination Marketing and Communications, Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority Tina Chikhani Nader, Head of Digital Marketing, Media and Ecommerce, Unilever
Head of Digital Marketing, Media and Ecommerce, Sourav Dey, Vice President of Growth for Wego
Vice President of Growth for Matt Nelson, Senior Director – Marketing Performance, Miral Destinations
Starting things off, Panella asked the question, How can we leverage data analytics to provide personalised campaigns?
Personalisation through data
Unilever's Nader started the conversation by stressing the need to embrace data to stay relevant.
'If we don't understand through data where our consumers are, what they are doing, and what they are going through, it would be very difficult for brands to resonate with audiences,' said Nader.
She referenced Dove's Detox Your Feed campaign, which used social listening and platform data to target users with messages to unfollow harmful accounts, achieving deep personalisation through tech collaboration.
Nader emphasised that this level of personalisation was only possible through collaboration with platforms and available tech tools, showcasing how data analytics can be used to improve campaign reach and effectiveness.
Continuing the conversation, RAKTDA's Winte discussed AI's role in travel marketing, from audience segmentation to targeting and retargeting. She explained how important data tools, such as Outcomes, which uses AI to continuously optimise campaigns, guarantees prices of biddable media and tracks search behaviour, which is crucial information within the tourism industry.
'In the tourism sector… this helps map the journey from inspiration to booking and what the gap is between searches and booking,' said Winter. She also raised concerns around outdated attribution models like last-click, pushing for more nuanced approaches.
Beyond vanity metrics and maximising marketing ROI
Wego's Dey talks about how important it is for departments to identify their own KPIs. He explained that performance KPIs differ by team, and while ROI remains central, deeper metrics often reveal the real story.
'In performance marketing, ROI is our primary KPI,' he said. 'But when campaigns don't show immediate profitability, we dig deeper.'
He explained that metrics like search session rate or click session rate often reveal whether marketing is driving quality traffic. 'If those are above 90 per cent, the issue might not be with us – it could be product, content, or commercial.' For Dey, the key is clear: 'Different teams need to focus on the metrics that actually matter to them.'
Nader agreed, urging marketers to align metrics with campaign goals. She added, 'We need to define what we're trying to do and what we're looking for. We know everyone loves to talk about engagements, but there are times we need to talk about click-throughs and then dive deeper into metrics that matter. Based on the objectives of each campaign, we need to go beyond vanity metrics to assess the success in ways that matter.'
Which leads the panel to the next question: How can brands build a framework that balances vanity metrics with performance and business metrics while actively attributing every action across the marketing journey?
Building smarter frameworks
Miral's Matt Nelson comments, 'Ultimately, going beyond vanity metrics means that measuring success is not going to be about a single number on a page anymore. It's about a set of indicators that constantly guide what we're doing. It's not about one measurement framework but about different ones working together. It's going to be more of a weather report than a report card.'
Winter added that traditional funnel models no longer apply due to fragmented consumer journeys, prompting Panella to ask how brands can keep pace with changing behaviours.
Nader observed that while regional platforms offer real-time media metrics, real-time content measurement remains underdeveloped. She praised a system she encountered in the US that offered instant feedback across the entire funnel, allowing immediate optimisation without approvals.
'You see instantly if content is landing, if a channel isn't working, or if your investment is off at any point in the funnel,' she said.
Nelson highlighted that while real-time and platform metrics are useful for immediate media performance, they quickly lose relevance—often within six weeks. In his team's structure, such metrics are reviewed internally no more than twice a year and are not shared beyond the marketing department. Instead, the focus is on aligning measurement with long-term business impact, understanding what matters now versus what will still matter months down the line.
Dey supported this, highlighting the growing role of AI. 'Doing it manually would have required a large team… AI allows us to do more with less.'
Adapting to shifting consumer behaviours
Winter acknowledged the 'messy middle' in modern consumer journeys and stressed the need for content that speaks to different audience segments. AI, she said, helps deliver relevant messaging faster – though scaling remains a challenge.
She said, 'With our media strategy team, we're constantly looking at that and looking at tools of optimisation using AI. What can we do from a creative standpoint? I love what you said about creating content at scale. It's so applicable because you have such various segments and audiences who need different things.
Especially in tourism, it's not one product. It's an entire destination with multiple touchpoints.
If you are somebody who enjoys hiking, you're from the Nordics, and I want you to come to us, I'll be sending you images of food from our restaurants. I'll send you hiking trails and things of that nature. It's constant analysis.
I have to say, because of machine learning and AI, we're able to do it at speed. We're just not there yet to do it at scale.'
She also touched on emerging AI platforms like Perplexity, which could transform travel booking by eliminating site redirections. By moving beyond static segmentation, marketers can uncover real-time insights like travel sentiment and awareness. By feeding that information into an AI model, it becomes possible to generate real-time, intuitive insights – such as travel frequency, sentiment about destinations, or awareness of specific places. While this kind of AI isn't widely used in tourism yet, the Winter expressed interest in leading its adoption.
Nader added that targeting is moving from broad demographics to niche communities united by shared interests. She encouraged brands to speak the language of these groups to connect meaningfully, echoing Winter's earlier example of tailoring content to hikers from Nordic countries.
'By engaging with these communities in an authentic way – speaking their language and understanding their culture – brands can build stronger, more relevant connections. The key challenge now is finding ways for brands to integrate into these communities seamlessly, without appearing like traditional advertising,' says Nader.
Winter concluded, 'We're constantly looking at ways to optimise using AI because we have so many different audiences… the content we create must speak to each of them.'
Nader emphasised the importance of brands becoming part of communities by clearly defining their values, intentions, and target audience – not just demographically, but with a deeper understanding of how people live, think, and interact. It's about going beyond labels like '18 to 24 female' to understand daily behaviours, environments, and mindsets.
Once a brand speaks the community's language and aligns with its culture, it can naturally embed itself and build meaningful connections.
Read the full event wrap-up here.
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