SQL

SQL queries, database management, and data analysis techniques (132 posts)

How to start forecasting in BigQuery with zero training

If you’d told me five years ago that I’d be forecasting product demand using a model trained on 100 billion time points… without writing a single line of ML code… I probably would’ve asked how many coffees you’d had that day ☕️ But its a brand new world. And it’s possible. Let me explain What is TimesFM? TimesFM is a new foundation model from Google, built specifically for time-series forecasting. Think of it like GPT for time, instead of predicting the next word in a sentence, it predicts t

Katie Kaczmarek•14 Jul 2025

Behind the Cloud – Data Preparations in BigQuery

In this episode of Behind the Cloud, Matt explores BigQuery’s new Data Preparation feature, an AI-powered, point-and-click tool for transforming data with ease. From natural language transformations using Gemini to automated workflows and scheduled outputs, learn how Google is simplifying data prep for analytics and machine learning. Watch below 👇 on Youtube, or catch more from the series here. Transcript [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of Behind the Cloud. Today we are gonn

Matthew Hooson•24 Apr 2025

Easy ways to prepare your BigQuery warehouse for AI

You’ve probably heard that AI is coming to make our lives easier, especially in tools like BigQuery. But here’s the thing: AI isn't magic. If you want it to be accurate and useful, you need to set it up for success. One of the best ways to do that? Improve the metadata in your BigQuery warehouse. Metadata is like the index or contents page in a book, it quickly tells you exactly what’s inside and where to find it. Creating clear metadata means AI can more easily understand your data warehouse

Katie Kaczmarek•23 Apr 2025

Dataform for BigQuery: A basic end-to-end guide

Dataform is a powerful tool for managing your data workflows in a structured, version-controlled, and automated way. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced data engineer, Dataform simplifies SQL-based transformations while integrating seamlessly with Google BigQuery. Although this blog offers a basic introduction to Dataform's functionality, users can achieve significantly more with Dataform. From advanced scheduling, parameterised queries, and dependency management to complex data modelli

Prasanna Venkatesan•18 Mar 2025

How to extract GA4's event sequencing in BigQuery using the new batch fields

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) exports event data to BigQuery, enabling detailed user behavior analysis. However, GA4 batches events before sending them, making GA4 event sequencing in BigQuery more complex. Fortunately, three fields—batch_event_index, batch_ordering_id, and batch_page_id—help provide precise sequencing information. For a full schema of the GA4 export, head over to google documentation. This article breaks down these fields in a clear, practical way and shows how to use them togethe

Katie Kaczmarek•24 Feb 2025

A step-by-step guide to migrating scheduled queries to Dataform

Managing scheduled queries in BigQuery often feels limiting — there’s no version control, no easy collaboration, and scaling can be difficult. If you’ve ever wondered how to make SQL workflows smoother, Dataform is your answer. In this post, I’ll show you how I migrated a BigQuery scheduled query to Dataform and how it transformed the way I manage my data pipelines. After all, we all want to know who’s been touching our queries, don’t we? Getting started in Dataform First thing you need to

Katie Kaczmarek•27 Nov 2024

How to set up a Dataform repository with GitHub & Google Cloud integration

Setting up a Dataform repository can be challenging without the right steps. Whether you’re new to Dataform or want to optimise your workflow, this guide will show you how to seamlessly connect it with GitHub and Google Cloud (GC). What is Dataform and why use it? Dataform is a powerful tool for managing version-controlled SQL workflows in a collaborative way. GC incorporates BigQuery and GitHub integration, providing an efficient way to organise and maintain complex data pipelines. Let’s bre

Katie Kaczmarek•27 Nov 2024

Integrating siloed data: Springer Nature marketing and sales case study

The Springer Nature Group is an academic publishing company, with brands dating back to 1842, that advances scientific discovery by publishing robust and insightful research, supporting the development of new areas of knowledge, making ideas and information accessible around the world, and leading the way on open access. The challenge The sales and marketing teams depended on incomplete data, which didn’t capture the entire customer journey due to different systems in use. Transactions and re

Mark Rochefort•7 Aug 2024

Behind the Cloud: Using Generative AI in the GCP

In this episode of Behind the Cloud, Matthew delves into the world of generative AI in the Google Cloud Platform, highlighting how Google has integrated generative AI features into its various services. Matthew explores the ways generative AI can be used within BigQuery, such as generating SQL queries and Python notebooks! Watch below 👇 or head over to our YouTube channel Transcript Introduction to Generative AI in Google Cloud [00:00:00] Matt: Hello and welcome to another episode of Behi

Matthew Hooson•30 Jul 2024

Behind the Cloud: GCP foundational best practice

In this episode of Behind the Cloud, Matt explains how to organise GCP projects by specific use cases, how to automate processes, establish clear naming conventions, and follow best practices around security, tagging, and more. Watch below 👇 or head over to our YouTube channel Transcript Introduction [00:00:00] Matthew: Hello and welcome to another episode of Behind the Cloud. We’ve had a little bit of a brief hiatus but now we’re back and we’re going to do another series of videos. Today

Matthew Hooson•27 Jun 2024

Behind the Cloud: Connecting GA4 to BigQuery

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 GCP project. Watch below 👇 or head over to our YouTube channel 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 somet

Matthew Hooson•14 Mar 2024

Behind the Cloud: The essentials of Google BigQuery

In this episode of Behind the Cloud, Matt discusses the essentials of Google Cloud’s BigQuery. Everything from project structure, data handling, to understanding the costs involved. Watch below 👇 or head over to our YouTube channel Transcript [00:00:00] Matt: Hello and welcome to Behind the Cloud. Today we’re going to be diving into the nuts and bolts of Google Cloud’s BigQuery and how it can help to revolutionise your marketing analytics. Whether you’re really familiar with the cloud or th

Matthew Hooson•7 Feb 2024

Behind the Cloud: What GCP tools should you be familiar with?

In this episode of Behind the Cloud, Matthew aims to answer the question, what are the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) tools of the marketing analytics trade? And more specifically, what are the tools that you should care about in Google Cloud Platform. For a more in-depth write up on GCP tools, check out Matt’s blog post. Watch below 👇 or head over to our YouTube channel Transcript [00:00:00] Matt: Hello and welcome to today’s episode of Behind the Cloud. We’re going to try and answer the ques

Matthew Hooson•13 Jan 2024

2023: Measurelab's year in review

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

Steven Elliott•22 Dec 2023

The Derelict Data Warehouse

A well-maintained and utilised data warehouse is a thing of beauty. Imagine all your data from disparate sources autonomously extracted, loaded and transformed into nice neat reporting tables. Picture, if you can, impactful analysis, company-wide data-driven decision-making, a true understanding of return on ad spend. It’s enough to make anyone weak at the knees. But therein lies the problem. Companies (or ambitious individuals) can be too desperate to reach the promised land and rush headlong

Matthew Hooson•24 Aug 2023

The Measure Pod: 2 years of podcasting

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

Daniel Perry-Reed•3 Aug 2023

We are going BIG on DATA

See what we did there? Okay, so maybe a tad too much on the title. It is catchy, so hey. Firstly - we are pretty chuffed to welcome Lace to our team. She joins us to spearhead our offering in all things DATA science and data engineering, which (to be completely frank) is where all roads point in this analytics game. With the advent of App plus Web (from Google Analytics), and particularly the opportunity to access raw data through BigQuery, this is an exciting place to be right now. Secondly -

Mark Rochefort•29 Jun 2020

Google Tag Manager form field tracking: capture pre-populated form changes

This is part 5 (and my first contribution, so bear with me) to this "semi-regular" series, dedicated to reusable GTM solutions for scenarios or issues we’ve encountered more than once. Last time, we looked at how to capture existing classic Google Analytics calls with GTM, and this time we'll be exploring how to track changes in pre-populated HTML form fields. Why I did it I was recently approached with a request from a client who wanted to know which fields were updated in a form that was pa

Victor Sarker•22 Jun 2020