#135 Twelve highlights of 2025 and future predictions
Dara and Matthew recap 2025 with 12 top highlights, AI, analytics, and the best moments on The Measure Pod.
Data privacy, GDPR, consent management, and compliance (130 posts)
Dara and Matthew recap 2025 with 12 top highlights, AI, analytics, and the best moments on The Measure Pod.
How we helped the University of Exeter connect student data end-to-end to measure marketing ROI and optimise recruitment.
AI expert Daniel Hulme, founder of Satalia, shares his journey from UCL PhD to entrepreneur, discussing AI, consciousness & deep tech.
How Charles Stanley unified customer data with a Google Cloud solution, improving journey visibility, data reliability, and personalised marketing.
Dara and Matthew chat with Juliana Jackson on her journey, product mindset, and how AI is shaping modern analytics.
Yali Sassoon joins The Measure Pod to discuss Snowplow’s growth, AI innovation, data challenges, and the future of user experience.
Johan van de Werken joins The Measure Pod to discuss GA4Dataform, BigQuery, and the future of analytics engineering and automation.
In this episode of The Measure Pod, Dara and Matthew sit down with Mark Edmondson, AI Engineer, founder of Sunholo, Aitana, and board member at 8-bit-sheep.
In this episode of The Measure Pod, Dara and Matthew sit down with Brian Clifton, the former Head of Web Analytics at Google (EMEA), author, and founder of Verified-Data.com and Advisor to Piwik PRO.
At the start of the year, if you’d asked us whether Measurelab would be standing shoulder to shoulder with Europe’s biggest consultancies by September, we would've been surprised. Not because we don't believe in ourselves, but because these things feel so distant - until suddenly, they’re not. So, here it is: we’ve been awarded the Marketing Analytics Services Partner Specialisation in Google Cloud Partner Advantage. What’s the big deal? In Google’s own words (with the obligatory Zs): “Spec
In this episode of The Measure Pod, Dara and Matt welcome Josele Perez, co-founder of Trackingplan, to dive into the evolving challenges and opportunities in data collection.
In this episode of The Measure Pod, Dara and Matt sit down with Roman Petrochenkov, a seasoned marketing analytics leader with deep expertise in data strategy and measurement.
In this episode of The Measure Pod, Dara and Matt are joined by Chad Sanderson from Gable.ai, a seasoned expert in the data space with a diverse background ranging from journalism to data science.
In this episode of The Measure Pod, Dara and Matt are joined by Denis Golubovsky from Stape.io, the team making server-side Google Tag Manager implementation as simple as the click of a button.
In this episode of The Measure Pod, Dara and Matt are joined by István Mészáros, founder and CEO of Mitzu - a company who have built a warehouse-native product analytics solution.
In this episode of The Measure Pod, Dara and Mattew are joined by Antony Mayfield to talk about what 15+ years of digital transformation work actually looks like and how it’s changed.
In this episode of The Measure Pod, Dara and Matt are joined by Verónica Delgado-Benito to chat through her journey from molecular biology PhD to data analyst at Springer Nature.
In this episode of The Measure Pod, Dara and Matt dive into a whole mix of marketing analytics news and musings. From new BigQuery features and GA4 updates to ChatGPT integrations and data quality best practices.
In this special episode of The Measure Pod, Dan and Bhav bid farewell as they step back from the show, making way for Dara to take the helm as a familiar voice returning to the podcast.
In this week's episode of The Measure Pod, Dan and Bhav are joined by Jorge Ahumada Garcia from Coppel, one of Mexico’s largest retailers and banks.
In this week's episode of The Measure Pod, Dan and Bhav are joined by Egor Howell, a rising voice in data science and content creation.
In this episode of The Measure Pod, Dan and Bhav are joined by Ole Bossdorf, an analytics expert at venture capital firm Project A, which boasts a portfolio of over 120 companies.
Same same but different At the beginning of the year, I wasn't quite sure what Measurelab would look like by the end of 2024. Altman's assistants had just been unleashed. The robots were on the march. Would the analytics arena be conquered by AI? Would we all be replaced by intelligent agents? As it turns out, no. Things are pretty much the same - on the surface at least. And that's no bad thing. After the tumultuous ups and downs of a rollercoaster 2023, I'll take steady, deliberate progress
In this week's episode of The Measure Pod, Dan and Bhav are joined by János Moldvay from Funnel to dive into the intricacies of Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM), Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA), and the future of marketing measurement.
In this week's episode of The Measure Pod, Dan and Bhav dive into the intricate world of product analytics.
In this episode of The Measure Pod, Dan and Bhav welcome back Adam Greco from Amplitude.
This week's episode of The Measure Pod was recorded live at MeasureCamp London, where Dan and Bhav discussed the future of analytics, specifically what it could look like in the next decade.
In this week's episode of The Measure Pod, Dan and Bhav reflect on insights gained from MeasureCamp London, and dive into the thought-provoking topic of "the death of accuracy."
In this week's episode of The Measure Pod, Dan and Bhav welcome back Steen Rasmussen from IIH Nordic, a previous guest known for his insightful perspectives.
In this week's episode of The Measure Pod, Dan and Bhav are joined by Juliana Jackson, who has a diverse background in sales, product, training, and analytics.
Navigating the ever-evolving landscape of marketing technology, I've come to terms with a key realisation: marketing analytics is marketing. This acknowledgment hasn't always been easy. Years ago, as a humble web analyst, the lines weren't as blurred. However, with the advent of tools like Google Analytics 4 (GA4), stringent privacy laws such as GDPR, and changing browser policies like those of Safari, the role of a web analyst has transformed significantly. In the old world - us web analysts
In this week's episode of The Measure Pod, Dan and Bhav are joined by Ken Williams from DiveTeam to discuss modern marketing and measurement strategy.
In this week's episode of The Measure Pod, Dan and Bhav discuss the concept of treating data as a journey, not just a destination.
In this episode of Behind the Cloud, Matt explores the practical side of Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and its free export feature to BigQuery. We learn about export limits, batch exports, and streaming options for GA4 data. The episode also touches on setting up BigQuery within a Google Cloud project. Video transcript Introduction to GA4 and BigQuery Export [00:00:00] Matt: Hello and welcome back to Behind the Cloud. This week we’re going to delve into something a little bit more practical. Whe
Opening scene: A large meeting room at BigCorp. A systems architecture diagram with lots of boxes and arrows flowing from left to right fills a large whiteboard. Kelvin joins Jan (marketing director) and Joe (head of data) at the table, earnest expression, hands clasped in front of him. Kelvin: So, Jan, Joe, tell me a bit about the history of the warehouse. Joe: Well, going way back, it was originally an on-prem system, which was replaced back in 2019 with an Oracle data warehouse as part of a
In this week's episode of The Measure Pod it's the end of an era as we bid farewell to our fellow co-host, Dara Fitzgerald.
In this week's episode of The Measure Pod we spoke with Timo Dechau, a product manager and analyst with a unique perspective on event tracking.
In this week's episode of The Measure Pod we spoke with Tim Ceuppens, a creative thinker in the field of data and marketing.
In this week's episode of The Measure Pod we spoke with Alun Lucas, the Managing Director at Zuko Analytics. We spoke specifically about webforms, and the optimisation tool Zuko has built to help businesses.
In this week's episode of The Measure Pod we spoke with Matt Jones, a Technical SEO freelancer, and creator of the Freelancing Friends community and podcast.
In this week's episode of The Measure Pod we welcomed Rick Dronkers back from Data to Value. We talked about all things CDP and GA4.
2023 was a momentous year for Measurelab. It marked a decade of delivering analytics excellence to the world, a year when we were named one of the UK’s best places to work and became a fully-certified GCP partner, a summer that saw the sunsetting of Universal Analytics, followed by the new dawn of generative AI and the beginning of an augmented analytics era. Into the sunset From the very beginning of January, right up to the deprecation deadline of July 1st, we were swamped with GA4 migratio
In this week's episode of The Measure Pod, it's our Christmas special! Dan and Bhav discuss the highs and lows of the past year, and predictions for 2024.
In this week's episode of The Measure Pod we spoke to Adam Greco from Amplitude. We talked specifically around warehouse native analytics, and whether it's a passing trend or an integral part of the future.
Episode Summary: In this weeks sound bite (from the archive) Dan & Dara spoke with Rowenna Fielding, a data privacy expert. She discusses the difference between ePrivacy and GDPR, as well as debunking cookie consent. Full episode here: https://shorturl.at/mxTW5 ----- About The Measure Pod: The
Episode Summary: This is the first of our weekly sound bites (from the archive). In this clip from September 2022, Dan & Dara spoke with Rick Dronkers about GDPR and data privacy. Full episode here: https://shorturl.at/cIKSU ----- About The Measure Pod: The Measure Pod is a weekly podcast hoste
Using Zapier AI automation, we aim to build our very own GPT capable of grabbing data from BigQuery for analysis.
Full show notes, transcript and (NEW!) AI chatbot - https://bit.ly/3tEDQL8. 00:00 Start 00:15 Intro 00:40 Main topic 00:40 What’s the biggest challenge today which will be gone in five years time? 03:42 What will be the biggest challenge in the next five years? 07:53 Outro ----- Episode Summary:
The University of the Arts London (UAL) is the largest specialist Art and Design institution in Europe with over 18,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students. It comprises six specialist art and design colleges: Camberwell College of Arts, Central St Martins, Chelsea College of Arts, London College of Communication, London College of Fashion and Wimbledon College of Arts. The UAL Digital Public Platforms team manages data from across 10+ sites and over 250,000 users a month. The challenge
In this episode Dan, Dara and Bhav had the pleasure of chatting with Alex, Head of SEO & Marketing Technology at ASOS.
Join Dan, Dara and Bhav discuss the future of product analytics tools and the intersection between product analytics and marketing analytics.
In this week's episode of The Measure Pod, Dan, Dara and Bhav delve deep into the transition from Universal Analytics (UA) to Google Analytics 4 (GA4).
Dan, Dara and Bhav are joined by David Mannheim (founder of Made With Intent and author of The Person In Personalisation) to talk about the world of personalisation.
Dan and Dara kick off a new season of The Measure Pod by introducing Bhav Patel as a guest co-host and discussing all things marketing and product analytics.
If you also work in an industry like analytics, there's generally very few people who you can really talk to about work stuff. I bet most of us have had something like "do you have Chandler Bing's job?" said to us at some point. Or is that just me? Anyway, to the point. Almost to the day two years ago I wrote about how we set up and launched The Measure Pod - wow, doesn't time really fly! If you've never come across the podcast The Measure Pod, you'd be forgiven. Like a lot of things, it was b
This week Dan and Dara are joined by Rasmus Houlind - author of the book Hello $FirstName and CXO at Agillic.
This week Dan and Dara chat about quantitative and qualitative data, the merits of each type, and how they need to be used together and not siloed away in different teams.
This week Dan and Dara chat about the slow but steady move in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) towards reintroducing older session-based metrics.
It can be daunting and frustrating to add another piece of technology and complexity to your analytics stack. Still, we explain why server-side GTM may be worth the migration.
This week Dan and Dara are joined by Alexis Nicolas from brīt klik. They discuss the reasons why companies would want to move beyond just using Google Ads to use the GMP, and where GA fits into this.
This week Dan and Dara are back solo this week to talk about the recent news from Google that they are removing most of the rules-based attribution models from GA and Google Ads.
This week Dan and Dara are joined by Matthew Hooson from Measurelab to talk about server-side Google Tag Manager (sGTM) and the UPDATE framework for migrating over.
GA4 doesn’t track people, it tracks users. But users are the closest proxy we have to counting people, so we end up just using it anyway, but do you know what it means?
This week Dan and Dara are joined by Johan van de Werken, creator of GA4BigQuery.com. They chat about how GA4BigQuery started and where it's going, how Johan moved from letters to numbers.
Google Analytics 360 (GA360) is worth knowing about, especially if you’re using Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to report on a business that gets a lot of daily traffic; has multiple analytics projects dependent on the BigQuery extract; operates on a lot of different sites and/or apps or has a particularly
The real-time report in GA4 is not without its merits. Here's what it is, how it works and how to use it and all of it's features.
How to use the event modification feature in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to change details about the event without touching the implementation. No coding, no Google Tag Manager, no developers, all done from within the GA4 user interface!
If you’re ready to make the leap to a server-side Google Tag Manager (sGTM) container, we developed the UPDATE framework to help you maximise your chances of a successful switch.
This week Dan is joined by Usman Qureshi from the CRO agency Spiralyze to discuss all the GA4 features that they need to see in 2023.
This week Dan and Dara are chatting about what they think will change in the analytics industry in 2023.
This week Dan and Dara are joined by Luisa from Jellyfish to help make sense of the recent SKAdNetwork 4.0 release from Apple.
This week Dan and Dara take a look back across The Measure Pod in 2022 and share some numbers and statistics of how it's been going. They also each share their top 5 episodes of the year, and compare notes.
A reflection on the year gone by and how far we’ve come as a company and team. From taking over the north, growing the team, and an ever growing GA4 and sGTM appetite, this is the time to give ourselves a big pat on the back.
This week Dan and Dara discuss the recent changes announces from Apple on the way they will be copping 1st party cookie lifetimes - even if being being set via server-side GTM.
This week Dan and Dara are joined by Rowenna Fielding "a warrior on the front line of the fight to defend humanity's rights and freedoms in an increasingly tech dystopia", and helps organisations stitch together technology, law and humanity to make stuff work the way they want it to.
Google's Consent Mode is quickly becomming an essential part of any GTM setup. Here are some questions you need to answer before you decide to ‘turn it on’.
This week Dan and Dara discuss the recent announcement that the sunsetting of GA360 has been pushed back 9 months to the 1st July 2024.
This week Dan and Dara are joined by Stacey Harper, a fellow GA4 expert and trainer! They discuss war stories, hidden features and the huge importance of a migration strategy/plan for migrating to GA4.
This week Dan and Dara are joined by JJ Reynolds to chat about the recent rebranding of Data Studio to Looker Studio and what it means for the rest of us.
This week Dan and Dara reflect on the current state of play with Google Analytics 4 (GA4), with migrations being a hot topic at the moment for Measurelab.
This week Dan and Dara chat with Jim Sterne and chat about the Digital Analytics Association and his long and illustrious career in digital.
This week Dan and Dara chat with Rick Dronkers to talk everything privacy - from compliance and GDPR, to Schrems and Google's stance.
Did you know the default data retention period in GA4 is set to 2 months? Don't lose the ability to report and explore - change your data retention settings today.
This week Dan and Dara chat about some new cookie settings released in Google Analytics 4.
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 the differences between Google Analytics.
This week Dan and Dara are joined by Richard Fergie to chat all about forecasting with machine learning models, and the flaws in Google Analytics 4's machine learning approach to watch out for.
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.
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!
In May 2022, it was the 10th anniversary of MeasureCamp London and a few of us Measurelabbers headed out for a Saturday of analytics discussions, debates and fun!
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.
Consent Mode is used in Google Analytics 4 to model unconsented user data into the reports, but what is it? This guide will explore what Consent Mode is, and how GA4 and GTM utilises it.
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.
This week Dan and Dara are joined by Bhavik Patel to talk about the differences and similarities between product and marketing analytics.
Google's game streaming service Stadia introduced the concept of Session Days, something we can use in the digital analytics world too using Data Studio and Google Analytics 4.
This week Dan and Dara chat through how attribution works in Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4, and the differences between them.
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 Campaign Timeout setting in Universal Analytics is hard to understand, and often misunderstood. Here we explain what it is and how it effects pretty much all of your data in GA.
This week Dan and Dara chat about the troubles of tracking too much in Google Analytics, especially when migrating from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4.
This week Dan and Dara discuss the sunsetting of Universal Analytics in 2023. They discuss what the timeframes really mean, and what you'd need to be doing at each stage.
This week Dan and Dara are joined by Liam Galliers to discuss why you'd have both Adobe Analytics and Google Analytics on your website. They chat about the differences, and who they think the target audiences are for each.
This week Dan and Dara discuss the intricacies of measuring offline marketing activities in Google Analytics. What the various methods are, and what to look out for when analysing the performance of the offline channels.
This week Dan and Dara are joined by Peter O'Neill to talk about how he founded MeasureCamp and what the journey was like from the very first one, through COVID, to what the future holds for the analytics unconference.
How will Google’s machine learning conversion modelling and other models change analytics? Is this the end of real data?
This week Dan and Dara talk about common Google Analytics mistakes they see time and time again. From using UTMs incorrectly to having analytics siloed away.
This week Dan and Dara are joined by Derek Ooi to talk about app attribution, and why an MMP is essential.
This week Dan and Dara discuss where they think the future of Google Analytics is heading. Spoiler alert - like it or not, it's all GA4.
Keeping up with the analytics industry is a daunting task. This list is a good starting point for anyone wanting to get caught up - or stay one step ahead.
This week Dan and Dara are back together for the first time in 2022 to discuss how they like to keep up to date with the analytics technology, legislation and industry in general.
This week Dan is joined by Tom Woods to discuss all things data-driven attribution off the back of Google Analytics 4 launching DDA as their go-to model.
A reflection on the year gone by and how far we’ve come as a company and team. From remote working to co-working, finding time for fun, and a growing appetite for GA4, we only mention Covid a few times.
This week Dan and Dara discuss the relevance of the Google Sheets connector for GA, and if GA4 not having one will be a big deal or not.
This week Dan and Dara discuss Segments in GA. They discuss some good use cases, lesser-known hacks and applications.
This week Dan and Dara are joined by Steven Elliott, our Managing Director. Steve discusses how tracking data about his body and exercise has enabled him to run experiments that have optimised his sleep and recovery.
Learn how to create and set cookies using Google Tag Manager using this simple script and a Custom HTML tag.
This week Dan and Dara talk about server-side GTM. It's come out of beta, so they discuss what it is, why it's important and where it's going.
This week Dan and Dara discuss how the access to 'real' data in Google Analytics is becoming more limited due to technology and legislation changes.
This week Dan and Dara dig deep into the ABCs of Google Analytics metrics. Defining what they actually mean and their relevance and/or place in the modern technological age.
This week Dan and Dara chat attribution modelling and how/where/if/when it's useful and important to invest in.
This week Dan and Dara debate the usefulness of the Google Analytics (GA/GA4) Session, and try to see if there is an alternative.
We all need to play our part in promoting a more responsible, ethical approach to collecting and using customer data. If we don’t, there’s a risk we’ll be left with nothing to measure.
Be warned: the risk of sticking with your current Google Analytics implementation may well be greater than any costs associated with the "migration" to GA4.
There's a surprising number of data feeds and transfers for Google Analytics 4, BigQuery, Data Studio and all its connected accounts and platforms. We set out to map them all to assist with your architecting.
The new future version of Google Analytics has been announced - now branded as Google Analytics 4. Building on the "App + Web" property that was released last year, this sets the direction for Google Analytics going forwards. It is now the default experiences for all new properties and is where all product developments will be focussed. Google Analytics 3, commonly known as Universal Analytics, was released in October 2012. This next product iteration for Google Analytics is a major step on fro
Creating your first GTM tag This is the third of a series dedicated to introducing you, faithful reader, to the wonders and delights of Google Tag Manager. Last time, we took a high-level look at GTM and how it works, and today we'll be looking at how to set up a simple tag. Setting up a Google Analytics pageview tag We're going to set up a Google Analytics pageview tag. This replaces the old hardcoded GA that you'd used to have to put on every page of the site. We start by going to tags and
Amidst news of cookies crumbling and third party cookies eventually becoming obsolete, there is even more emphasis on identifying visitors who arrive on websites and providing users with a reason to remain loyal to your brand. Here is a simple user case on how to effectively personalise your customer experience using the Google Marketing Platform. According to Econsultancy: “50% of consumers are likely to engage with a brand when they receive an interesting offer.” So how can you demonstrate
Speaking at Measurefest For the first time in a few years, I took to the stage at Measurefest to talk about how to get your data from Google Analytics into BigQuery, and what you can do with it when you get there. Affordable BigQuery solutions Obviously, Analytics 360 can do this, but it costs $$$ per year. I outlined some more affordable methods, including third-party connector solutions, and provided a detailed example of how we would use our own Pipelines solution and what we could achiev
<span style="font-weight: 400;">This article describes how to integrate Google Analytics for Firebase (formerly Firebase Analytics) to a React Native app. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">In order to do this, you need to use a JavaScript bridge called </span><a href="https://github.com/invertase/react-native-firebase"><span style="font-weight: 400;">RNFirebase</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span> This is lightweight layer sitting on top of native Firebase librarie
<span style="font-weight: 400;">After a steep learning curve into the world of Firebase Analytics or Google Analytics for Firebase, it seems that a blog post about it would be much valued and appreciated. I’ve compiled a list of the most frequently asked questions.</span> 1. How does Firebase Analytics define a session? Firebase Analytics defines a session as a user engaging with your app for a minimum amount of time (10 seconds by default) followed by your user not engaging with your app
Starting a new adventure in analytics When I first decided to quit my ohh-so-lucrative job in the investment banking, most of my friends and family thought I was going bonkers! Neither were they impressed with my idea to start a new career in Web Analytics, working for some small start-up based in Lewes (wait why exactly do you want to work in Loos?!?). I must say that I had my doubts as well - will I be able to adapt to a totally new working environment? Will I ever learn what all the cookies,
Diving into GA health checks Right, now that some of the basic concepts and industry jargon are starting to sound a bit more familiar, things are starting to get interesting – not that last week was boring but this week I’ve been having a go at one of the most important parts of a piece of “initial discovery” for a client: A Google Analytics Health Check. Our approach to health checks In this document, which the team creates for every single one of our clients, we run a detailed audit of the