The Measure Pod

**Suggest a topic or guest by filling out the form https://bit.ly/3MNtPzl, or emailing podcast@measurelab.co.uk to drop Dan and Dara a message directly.** --- Intro - [00:00]  Topic - [01:11]  Wind Down - [32:22]  Outro - [34:45] --- Quote of the episode from Katie: "the cool thing about BigQuery is I think the only limitations to it is your own imagination and your courage as well" Quote of the e...

**Suggest a topic or guest by filling out the form https://bit.ly/3MNtPzl, or emailing podcast@measurelab.co.uk to drop Dan and Dara a message directly.** --- Intro 00:00  Topic 00:48  Wind Down 27:41  Outro 29:54 --- Quote of the episode from Dan: "Google can try to guess what it is you mean, but it's a stupid machine and often gets that wrong." Quote of the episode from Dara: "I get what you're...

**Suggest a topic or guest by filling out the form https://bit.ly/3MNtPzl, or emailing podcast@measurelab.co.uk to drop Dan and Dara a message directly.** --- Quote of the episode from Dan: "Time and time again, we get people with Universal Analytics and they're using their data and just assume it's complete, without realising their cookie banner is not tracking a bunch of stuff when people don't...

**Let us know what you think and fill out the form https://bit.ly/3MNtPzl, or email podcast@measurelab.co.uk to drop Dan and Dara a message directly.** --- Quote of the episode from Jim: "in 2002 we were overwhelmed with data because we had not heard the words 'big data' yet" Quote of the episode from Dan: "finally, there's someone that's willingly and able to listen to you and understand it" Quot...

**Let us know what you think and fill out the form https://bit.ly/3MNtPzl, or email podcast@measurelab.co.uk to drop Dan and Dara a message directly.** --- DISCLAIMER:  Neither we, or our podcast guest Rick Dronkers, is a lawyer or data privacy professional. We don’t give any legal advice. This podcast should not be taken as legal advice. Please consult with a lawyer and a privacy legislation prof...

**Let us know what you think and fill out the form https://bit.ly/3MNtPzl, or email podcast@measurelab.co.uk to drop Dan and Dara a message directly.** --- Quote of the episode from Bastien: "There's nothing like a sexy graph!" Quote of the episode from Dara: "If you start feeling like you're not stupid anymore, you're probably getting complacent." Quote of the episode from Dan: "I've not heard of...

This week Dan puts Dara in the hot seat for a Who Wants to Be a Millionaire special! Dara is raising money for charity, and Dan has curated 15 questions spanning Universal Analytics, Google Analytics 4, Google Tag Manager, and some other curveballs thrown in there for good measure too. Dara's chosen charity is Hopefield Animal Sanctuary, please support them if you can by donating to help the, care...

This week Dan and Dara chat about assessing the need for Google Analytics 360 in a GA4 world. Do you need 360? Should you still continue with 360 if you already have it for UA? Will you need to go to 360 with GA4? These are the questions that they assess and chat though, and more! The Measure Pod episode #6 - https://bit.ly/3pivbbK (or just look in your podcast player that you're in now) The Googl...

This week Dan and Dara chat about some new cookie settings released in Google Analytics 4 and this spins out into conversations on consent management, server-side tracking, 1P vs. 3P cookies, and a whole lot on browsers limitations (i.e. ITP and ETP). All the good stuff! The new cookie settings feature in GA4 is detailed on - https://bit.ly/3Sp3ewr. Dan and Dara mention episode #42 'Consent Mode a...

This week Dan and Dara are joined by Snowplow's Jordan Peck to chat shop about what Snowplow is, how and where it's used, and of course the differences between Google Analytics. Jordan is a friend of Measurelab's and the team saw his presentation at the latest MeasureCamp in London that spurred a lot of this conversation. See SNowplow's website for more details on who they are and what they do - h...

This week Dan and Dara discuss the differences in setting up and using the data from Google Analytics on apps versus websites. Dan recently built an Android app using Unity, and they both chat through how he found the process of 'tagging' it us with Firebase Analytics/Google Analaytics for Firebase/Google Analytics! Check out Dan's GA and GTM resources when using Unity for app development on his b...

This week Dan and Dara are joined by Richard Fergie (creator of Forecast Forge) to chat all about forecasting with machine learning models, and the flaws in Google Analytics 4's machine learning aproach to watch out for. Her's Richard's rules for using any machine learing forecast model: 1) No machine learning is allowed until you've plotted the data!  2) Make the simplest Forecast that you can  3...

This week Dan and Dara talk about what they've learned training analytics over the last 10 years. They discuss the value of subject matter expert driven training so that you can get real value from live in-person discussions and Q&A, as well as all the things they figured out not being professional teachers! Shameless but whatevs, here's a link to our GA4 Kickstarter training - https://bit.ly/...

This week Dan and Dara dive into the world of data retention and the somewhat secret setting that is in Google Analytics 4 and Universal Analytics alike. They discuss what it is, how it works, and what to bear in mind when looking to set up GA4, or export historic data from UA when the time comes. Google documentation on the data retention setting - https://bit.ly/3yvEZok. Simo Ahava's four custom...

This week Dan and Dara discuss the latest Google Analytics 4 release of behavioural modelling with consent mode - possibly the biggest single update to Google Analytics ever! They discuss what data can be trusted now in GA4, and if this is even a good or bad thing in the grander scheme of things. What do you think? Dan's blog on "What is Consent Mode in GA4?" - https://bit.ly/3HTrsdu Consent Mode...

This week Dan and Dara are joined by Edward Upton to talk about how Littledata are approaching GA4 with all of their ecommerce clients across Shopify and BigCommerce. They discuss the GA4 measurement protocol and the nuances that come with moving from the UA version, as well as some of the exciting features that GA4 is bringing to the table for the ecommerce space. See Littledata's website for mor...

This week Dan and Dara are joined by Mark Rittman to talk about the 'modern data stack' and how the danger with all analytics implementations is the ‘so what’ factor. They also touch on how the changes in Google Analytics 4 are changing things for the modern data stack, and what type of company would truly benefit from a fully-fledged setup. Check out Rittman Analytics - agile analytics consulting...

This week Dan and Dara are joined by Bhavik Patel to talk about the differences and similarities between product and marketing analytics, CRAP Talks, and the concept of 'analytical debt'. Find Bhav on his platform of choice - Twitter at https://bit.ly/3PntANX. Check out the blog Bhav wrote on "Data Privacy is the Latest Natural Resource in Tech" on the CRAP Medium on https://bit.ly/3sJM41d. Visit...

This week Dan and Dara discuss a listener submitted topic on how to measure the return on analytics. After arguing about the flawed premise of the quest, they explore different ways that analytics specialists and analysts can measure a tangible return for their hard work. The key ways that were discussed to measure the impact (or return if you will...) of analytics is via:  - Optimising marketing...

This week Dan and Dara chat through how attribution works in Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4, and the differences between them. They discuss the nuances and pain-points they have come up against, and what to look out for whenever using any of the built-in models. The blog post from Dan they mentioned on how the Universal Analytics Campaign Timeout works is at https://bit.ly/3LRdolG. Her...

This week Dan and Dara chat through all of the event types Google Analytics 4 has to offer - from automatically collected, to enhanced measurement, to customised. The new EU data and privacy controls recently released in GA4 - https://bit.ly/38CtxwU. The newest fields in Google Data Studio for the Google Ads connector for shopping campaign (including custom labels) - https://bit.ly/3rXkAVG. The fu...

This week Dan and Dara chat about the troubles of tracking too much in Google Analytics, especially when you come to migrate everything from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4. Not much to mention or link to in this episode - but thanks for reading the show notes (if you are)! Dan's two questions he asks when it comes to seeing if you need to migrate some data from UA to GA4 are; Is this da...

This week Dan and Dara are joined by Liam Grant and Matthew Hooson to chat about their experiences at MeasureFest and brightonSEO. The pick out their favourite talk and the relevance and application in the analytics world wherever possible. Check out Dan's Marvel-themed Google Analytics 4 presentation slides on "The role of GA in the future MarTech stack" over at https://bit.ly/3JKL3M9. Dan's pick...

This week Dan and Dara talk more about the announcement from Google on sunsetting Universal Analytics in 2023. They discuss what the timeframes really mean, and what you'd need to be doing at each stage. The key takeaway is DO NOT PANIC! Just focus on getting GA4 setup up to a good level before 1st July 2022, and we can think about how to get at the UA data after 1st July 2023. The PIVOT framework...

This week Dan and Dara are joined by Jenni Stacey to chat SEO measurement and how Google Analytics is (if at all) useful. Jenni shares how they work across different search engines, and how things like Core Web Vitals changes things in SEO. See our post on the announcement from Google on the sunsetting of Universal Analytics in 2023 - https://bit.ly/3uqhvhl. See more details on Core Web Vitals ove...