"What gets measured gets managed." - Peter Drucker (maybe)
Hey there!
There’s a simple phrase I’ve repeated for years in my day job as an engineering manager:
“What gets measured gets managed.”
It’s one of those universal truths in engineering, quality, and—turns out—online business too. Peter Drucker usually get's credit for this quote, but there's some debate.
What matters is that it is 100% true.
But here’s the honest truth: despite everything I know about metrics and process improvement, I’ve seriously underinvested in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) for my own websites.
That hit me like a truck last week at Social Media Marketing World 2025 when I sat in on a fantastic workshop by Zack Duncan called Google Analytics 4 Simplified: Commonsense Digital Measurement Tactics for 2025.
I used to be pretty comfortable with Universal Analytics (GA3). I even built some pretty detailed reporting workflows back in the day. But GA4? I never really embraced it. I let it sit in the background, collecting data I wasn’t looking at, with reports I never customized.
Until Zack’s Workshop
Zack broke things down in a way that really clicked for me—especially as someone who values clarity and process. He covered practical, no-fluff ways to get GA4 working for you—not just collecting noise.
He showed how to set up custom events for things like phone calls and form submissions. He explained how to actually make use of the landing page reports and customize the dashboards to reflect your real goals—not just bounce rates and average session durations.
But what struck me most wasn’t the technical how-to. It was the realization that I’ve been flying blind in my own business.
I’ve been putting out content, launching pages, testing ideas—but not measuring in a meaningful way. Not really. Not in the way I would insist on in my day job.
The Wake-Up Call
In engineering, we don’t guess whether a process is working—we measure it, analyze it, and improve it.
Why haven’t I been doing that with my online business? I had to laugh at myself.
That’s changing now. I left that session with a short to-do list and a long-overdue mindset shift: If I want my business to grow, I need to treat it like a real business—and that means measuring what matters.
If you haven’t dug into GA4 yet, or you’ve been pretending it’ll magically make sense later, I get it. But let me tell you, just spending an hour focused on practical measurement made me realize how much opportunity I’ve been leaving on the table.
If you’re in the same boat, now’s a good time to make a shift—track what really matters, use the data to guide your efforts, and stop flying blind.
Talk soon,
Mark
P.S. Zack’s session was a great reminder that even seasoned marketers and business owners need to relearn the basics from time to time. If you haven’t touched your GA4 reports lately… you’re not alone.
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