What Is a Benchmark? — Free Tool
An explanation of benchmarks: what they are used for, why industry benchmarks average across account sizes and habits that have nothing to do with yours, and why your own last quarter is usually the better comparison.
A benchmark is a reference figure, an industry average, a past period, a competitor, used to judge whether a current number is good, bad or typical.
What it is
A benchmark is a reference figure used to judge whether a current metric is good, bad or typical. It can be a published industry average, a competitor's number, or an account's own performance from a previous period, all serving the same comparative function.
How it is measured
A published industry benchmark is typically an average or median pulled from a large sample of accounts across an entire category, gathered by a research firm or platform and reported as a single representative figure for that industry.
Commonly misunderstood
A published industry benchmark can look authoritative because it comes from a large sample and a specific-sounding percentage, but that average is built by folding together account sizes, countries, posting habits and audience types that have nothing to do with the account trying to use it. A benchmark drawn from a mix of huge global brands and tiny local pages, posting daily and posting weekly, in wildly different markets, produces a number that does not describe any single one of them accurately. Your own account's last quarter is a far better benchmark for judging this quarter, because it holds the things that actually matter, audience, format mix, posting frequency, roughly constant. A published benchmark is worth a glance for a rough sanity check, but it should never replace comparing an account against its own recent history.
When it matters
It matters as a loose sanity check when there is no internal history yet to compare against, such as a brand-new account or a completely new content format. It matters less, and can actively mislead, once there is a real track record to compare against instead.
Related terms
Features
- What a benchmark is and the different kinds used in reporting
- Why published industry benchmarks are broad averages
- What gets averaged away in a cross-industry benchmark figure
- Why an account's own past performance is often the fairer comparison
- How to use a published benchmark without over-trusting it
Frequently asked questions
What is a benchmark in social media metrics?
It is a reference number, an industry average, a past period, a competitor's figure, used to judge whether a current result is good, bad or roughly typical.
Are industry benchmarks accurate for any one account?
They are averages across many account sizes, countries, industries and posting habits, so they rarely match the specific conditions of one particular account closely.
What is a better benchmark than an industry average?
An account's own performance from a prior period, since it holds audience, format and posting habits roughly constant in a way an industry-wide figure cannot.
Should industry benchmarks be ignored entirely?
Not entirely. They are useful for a rough sanity check on whether a number is wildly off, but should not be treated as a precise target.
Why do benchmarks vary so much between sources?
Different reports pull from different account samples, industries and time periods, which produces different averages even when both claim to measure the same thing.
