How are you managing your measurements?

“What gets measured gets managed.” This adage is frequently (yet dubiously) attributed to management theorist Peter Drucker (pictured). However, back in 1956, V.F. Ridgeway postulated: “If progress toward goals can be measured, efforts and resources can be more rationally managed.” 

This month’s Spotlight on RubyLaw is not intended to defame Peter Drucker, whose worthy contributions to business and management science are unquestioned. Nor is it to point out the “original” source, Dysfunctional Consequences of Performance Measurements (although it’s worth checking out). It’s about managing and measuring web KPIs, and the intention of sharing the above is simply to say: there’s been more than one brilliant mind harping on the importance of measurement, and that without measurement one cannot truly determine whether progress is being made.

When it comes to web KPIs and the role of RubyLaw, it’s less about “measuring” and more about “managing”.

Why?

Upon logging in, users are presented with RubyLaw Firm Analytics, a dashboard that provides real-time measurement of the performance of website content—and not just isolated pages, but ‘themes’ spanning the corpus of all content in RubyLaw. The underpinning for these ‘themes’ is RubyLaw 360, a feature that establishes and governs relationships between different types of structured content. The benefits of both RubyLaw 360 and RubyLaw Firm Analytics, is that website administrators can measure just about anything in RubyLaw—and that’s before factoring in any integrations with Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and Google Data Studio.

So, again, why is it less about “measuring” and more about “managing”?

Going back to the top, your ability to determine progress and proximity to goals is determined (yes, by measuring, but also) by deciding how and what to manage, so as to take informed actions based on those measurements.

For example, let’s consider two typical web KPIs: website traffic and landing page conversions. If your traffic increases or if your site converts more landing page submissions from Month A to Month B, you might report to firm leadership that your site is enjoying an uptick. However, if you’re measuring website traffic without considering sources or why, and the same goes for landing page conversions, these “vanity” metrics will not help you make actionable decisions. 

Let’s dig a little deeper. What if your firm was representing a public company embroiled in a highly visible lawsuit. If the media were to mention your firm, it’s possible that readers of that publication would visit your website and maybe even download your thought capital. While this outcome certainly isn’t a bad thing, and it may be worth sharing internally, absent context and source information, you may be inclined to think that the results are directly related to your efforts when, perhaps, the correlation is indirect.

For this reason, and a host of others, we recommend scheduling time with one of our experts to review and discuss what your firm is managing—so as to make more out of what you’re measuring. Contact your RubyLaw representative to learn more!

What about Privacy concerns around sharing your visitor’s data with Google?

With privacy front and center, many firms are giving visitors the option to reject cookies and tracking technologies. Others are concerned about sharing any of their private visitor data with a third-party like Google. 

If your firm prefers a higher level of privacy and complete control over your visitor data, RubyLaw Analytics is an alternative to Google Analytics which is both fully privacy compliant and does not share any data with Google or other third-parties. Not only does it provide a more forward-thinking approach to analytics, it also restores access to all of that visitor data you lost when your site began blocking cookies. Contact our Client Experience team for details on this new solution we began offering to selected RubyLaw users earlier this year.

If you’d like to learn more about how RubyLaw Firm Analytics, as well as how to better leverage Google Analytics (and related tools), please contact your RubyLaw representative. You can also attend an upcoming session of RubyLaw Live.