Failure mode: optimizing for prospects-found, not links-placed

Failure mode: optimizing for prospects-found, not links-placed
Mistake: the team celebrates "2,000 broken links found" while placements stay flat. Volume is a vanity number; placement is the only output that counts.
Fix metric reframe:
— 1. Define the funnel: prospects verified → contacts found → sent → replied → placed.
— 2. Track conversion rate at each stage, not raw totals.
— 3. Find the worst-converting stage and fix that step first (usually contact-find or intent-match).
— 4. Set the team KPI on placements-per-100-verified, not links-found.
— 5. QA gate: weekly review reports conversion rates, never standalone volume.
Automation: funnel-stage counters in the tracker, auto-rolled into a weekly summary.
Definition of done: every report leads with stage conversion, and the bottleneck stage owns next week's fix.