Stop Measuring Impressions. Start Measuring Business Impact.

Every month, thousands of CEOs receive a communications or marketing report that look exactly the same.

It is a beautifully designed PDF. It features green arrows pointing upwards. It highlights large numbers in the thousands—or millions—for "Impressions," "Reach," and "Engagement."

The marketing team is celebrating. But the CEO is confused. They look at the P&L (Profit and Loss) statement, and the revenue line has not moved.

This is the "Vanity Trap."

In the Asian B2B market, this disconnect is dangerous. You cannot pay salaries with "likes." or “awareness”. If you are spending SGD 50,000 a month on regional execution, you need to know exactly what return that investment is generating.

At We are Brand Utility, we believe that marketing activity must be tied to business outcomes. Here is how we help leaders shift their focus from vanity metrics to commercial reality. 

The Problem with "Impressions"

"Impressions" simply measure how many times an advertisement was displayed on a screen. It does not mean a human saw it. It certainly does not mean a human cared about it.

When an agency focuses on impressions, they are incentivised to chase "cheap" volume. They will target broad, low-value audiences just to make the numbers look big.

This creates a false sense of security. You feel like your brand is "everywhere," but your sales team has an empty pipeline. 

The 3 Metrics That Actually Matter

To fix this, you must change what you measure. When we act as an Execution Partner, we ignore the vanity metrics.

We believe in - broadly - three indicators of business health.

1. Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)

This is not just an email address. This is a prospect that fits your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and has taken a specific action, such as downloading a whitepaper or requesting a demo.

• The Shift: Do not ask "How many people saw this?" Ask "How many qualified buyers raised their hand?"

2. Sales Qualified Opportunities (SQOs)

This is the "handshake" metric. It measures how many MQLs your sales team actually accepted and opened a dialogue with.

• The Insight: If marketing generates 100 leads, but sales only accepts two, your execution is broken. You are targeting the wrong people. We track this conversion rate obsessively.

3. Pipeline Influence

B2B buying cycles in Asia are long. A prospect might see your content today but not buy for six months.

• The Metric: We measure "Pipeline Influence"—looking at closed deals and tracing back which content or campaigns the buyer engaged with during their journey. This proves the long-term ROI of your brand presence.

Case Study: The "Less is More" Strategy

We worked with a B2B services firm expanding into Malaysia. Their previous agency reported 500,000 impressions a month, but zero sales.

We audited their execution. They were targeting everyone across multiple platforms.

We narrowed the audience. We focused purely on C-Suite and C-1 decision-makers in the manufacturing sector.

• Impressions dropped by 90%. (The previous agency would have panicked).
• MQLs increased by 30%.
• Sales Pipeline grew by $250k SGD, with attribution to campaigns over 180 days.

The report looked less impressive on the surface, but the bank balance looked much better.

 How We Report (The "Business-First" Promise)

When you engage us as an Execution Partner, we do not send you reports full of jargon.

We sit down with you and look at the business goals.

• "Did this campaign help us enter the Thai market?"
• "Did this content shorten the sales cycle?"
• "Did we generate enough qualified leads to feed the sales team?"

If the answer is no, we change the execution. We do not hide behind the "Impressions" count.

Stop paying for noise. Start demanding impact. 

Sources:

• Harvard Business Review - https://store.hbr.org/product/the-metrics-that-marketers-muddle/smr551
• HubSpot - 'The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Statistics' - https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics