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QA and validation (171 posts)

Measurelab awarded Google Cloud Marketing Analytics Specialisation

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

Will Hayes11 Sept 2025

GA4 Dataform integration: how Springer Nature modernised analytics with Measurelab

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 Springer Nature needed to migrate their Universal Analytics dashboards to GA4 data. Their reporting relied on multiple stacked scheduled queries in BigQuery tha

Steven Elliott28 Aug 2025

Behind the Cloud – Releases and scheduling in Dataform

In this episode of Behind the Cloud, Matthew dives into the details of releases and scheduling in Dataform. He breaks down how to manage different versions of your codebase in GitHub. From taking snapshots, to scheduling executions at various intervals daily, hourly, or monthly. By the end of the episode, you’ll have the know-how to confidently release and schedule your code, making it easier to build robust tables and models with Dataform. Watch below 👇 on Youtube, or catch more from the ser

Matthew Hooson7 Mar 2025

2024: Measurelab's year in review

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

Steven Elliott27 Dec 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 Kaczmarek27 Nov 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 Hooson30 Jul 2024

The modernisation of marketing and the role of marketing 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

Daniel Perry-Reed19 Jul 2024

Behind the Cloud: Dataform, what is it and why does it matter?

Watch below 👇 or head over to our YouTube channel In this episode of Behind the Cloud, Matt discusses Dataform, what it is, and why it matters? Transcript Cloud Data Warehousing [00:00:00] Matt: Welcome to Behind the Cloud. Today we’re exploring data form, but first a little bit of scene setting. Over the past number of years, cloud computing, specifically cloud data warehousing, has advanced significantly. Huge amounts of data can be queried in seconds. The scalability of the platforms i

Matthew Hooson26 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 Hooson13 Jan 2024

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 Hooson24 Aug 2023

How to create events in GA4 using the UI

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) now gives users the ability to create new events or modify existing events through the use of the GA4 user interface. This is a fantastic add-on available to all and will be welcomed by those who are not familiar with their existing tag management system or do not have the relevant tech resources available to make some changes in a timely manner. Why would you create an event? First of all, creating a new event keeps you safe from interacting with existing events that

Olade Honvo11 Apr 2023

How to build an interactive GA4 BigQuery data schema

What and why? One of the great features of Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the ability to pass data into BigQuery (BQ). There are many benefits to this which have already been covered in some of our previous blogs (i.e. 10 reasons to export your GA4 data to BigQuery). Passing data to BigQuery is no longer just available to enterprise GA360 customers, but to anyone using GA4 for free. What I wanted to create was a simple interactive way to explore how GA4 data is saved in BigQuery. I found the GA36

Scott Hellmund23 Mar 2022

The sun is setting on Universal Analytics

It’s finally happening. Google has announced the sunsetting of Universal Analytics, or more specifically, the date when UA will stop processing new hits. The 1st of July, 2023. For those without a calendar to hand, that’s fifteen and a half months from now. So plenty of time still to think about migrating to Google Analytics 4, right? Wrong. Well, wrong if on 1st July 2023 you want to be able to compare your latest GA4 data with comparable data from the previous year. And what analyst wouldn’

Dara Fitzgerald16 Mar 2022

Data warehousing: What is BigQuery and how do I get started?

At Measurelab we live and breathe the Google Cloud Platform, so our specialists are experts in Bigquery.  We have decided in this series to share our knowledge and take you through some great techniques to maintain your BigQuery data warehouse.   So firstly-what is BigQuery? BigQuery is a fully-managed, serverless data warehouse that enables scalable analysis over petabytes of data. ...and that means? Simply put, BigQuery is a fantastic cloud-based data warehouse in which you can store huge

Lace Rogers21 Dec 2020

How recognising images works - when you're an algorithm

There are many different types of image recognition. The main aim of such practises is to correctly match a new picture to an existing group of pictures. In some instances it is not dissimilar to how a clustering algorithm works, in that common features are identified and grouped together (Moosmann et al., 2008). Although several methods of image recognition exist, this blog post will give an overview of the method of facial image recognition that has been patented by Tsai (2004). This inventio

Katy Beckett15 Dec 2020

Google Analytics data import: automate data import with Python & Cloud functions

Why automate data import into Google Analytics A few months back I was granted access to a Google Cloud Source Repository (private Git repositories hosted on Google Cloud part of Google’s Cloud developer tools) that contained Python code and configuration details for automating the extraction of data from a BigQuery table and uploading to Google Analytics as a custom dimension via the Management API on a desired schedule. Choosing the right approach for blog word counts Being primarily a Jav

Victor Sarker16 Nov 2020

Google Tag Manager setup: how to create your first tag

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

Adam Englebright7 Feb 2020

Turning classic GA calls into dataLayer pushes with GTM

This is part 3 of a 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 track clicks on iframes using GTM, and this time we’re looking at how to turn on-page classic Google Analytics calls to data layer pushes. The problem with hard-coded GA calls Say you still have hard-coded calls to classic GA on the page, but the library code itself was being delivered via GTM. It's now been removed, but there are

Adam Englebright9 Jan 2020

The Problem With Google Tag Manager Triggers: Those Shiny New Built-In Options (And a Possible Solution)

Hey folks. The shiny new Built-In Triggers for things we used to have to use big old Custom HTML tags to track before—Youtube tracking! Scroll depth! Element visibility!—have had a bit of time to bed in now. We had a look at changing over to the new built-in solutions everywhere we were using Custom HTML—if it's being done by Tag Manager itself, it has to be better, right? Right? Wrong. This issue is related to a fact that I've discovered through experience but not seen actually documented exc

Adam Englebright18 Jan 2018

How to integrate Optimizely with GTM & Universal Analytics

If you want to integrate your Optimizely experiment and variation data with Google’s Universal Analytics via Google Tag Manager, you will soon see that the official documentation assumes a custom‑coded implementation. It then instructs you to edit your GA pageview tag directly. If you are using Google Tag Manager, then you obviously will not want to follow this guidance as you probably have the Google Analytics pageview tag in a tag template. It is always advisable to keep custom JavaScript an

Steven Elliott16 Sept 2016

Bounce rate vs. Exit rate part one

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Many companies consider a high bounce rate an issue that needs to be addressed quickly. Others support a high bounce rate. The truth is that most people don’t understand what “bounce rate” really means.</span> So what is a Bounce rate? According to Google: Bounce Rate is the percentage of single-page sessions (i.e. sessions in which the person left your site from the entrance page without interacting with the page). A better definition would be: Bounce Ra

Alex Cirstea12 Sept 2016

GTM workspaces: how to manage multiple workspaces in Google Tag Manager

Exciting news in the world of analytics! Recently, Google has launched a new feature called Workspaces for both GTM and GTM 360 users. The goal of this new feature is to solve workflow challenges for multi-user teams working within the same container. Workspaces allow you to make changes in a specific instance of GTM, while others can work in a separate instance of the same container. Basically, when a Workspace is created, a new Container Draft is separated from the latest GTM container versi

Alex Cirstea31 Aug 2016

Google Analytics 360 Suite: what it is & why it matters

So it's finally happened, Google has brought their enterprise-level analytics offerings together in one neat package: the Google Analytics 360 Suite! What they have done is re-branded Google Analytics Premium as Google Analytics 360 and Adometry as Google Attribution 360, and released 4 all new tools. What’s included in the suite: Google Audience Center 360 (beta) A data management platform (DMP) that helps understand and identify customers across channels, devices, campaigns, etc. Google

Daniel Perry-Reed15 Mar 2016

We are Google Tag Manager Certified!

Measurelab is officially Google Tag Manager certified We are proud to announce that, following a rigorous testing process, Google have approved Measurelab to be certified partners for Google Tag Manager – re-affirming our position as one of the UK’s top Google Analytics consultancies, specifically when it comes to using Google Tag Manager. Why this certification matters As well as demonstrable advanced technical skills with Google Tag Manager implementations, a pre-requisite of the certifica

Mark Rochefort10 Nov 2015

R for analytics beginners: part 4 – building graphs and analysing data

Earlier in this series we reviewed several R libraries for Google Analytics. Then we started using RGA. Next we pulled data from Google Analytics using RGA. What now? I’m reaching for my university notes, because we’re getting into proper R territory. Diving into graphs with R Let’s start with graphs! Who doesn’t love a good graph? It just so happens there’s a lovely R library called ggplot2 that does really excellent graphs of all shapes and sizes1. We’re probably best looking at a few speci

Adam Englebright19 Feb 2015

GAIQ: How I prepared...and passed it!

It’s been exactly a month since I started to work at Measurelab, and so far it has been an amazing experience. Much of the industry jargon and tools are starting to sound familiar and I can make tea or coffee for almost anyone in the team without having to ask how they take it. In order to celebrate the fact that I had survived for a whole month, Mark suggested me to have a go at the Google Analytics Individual Qualification, (which I did..and passed!) For those of you that are not familia

Juan Barros2 Dec 2014

Key universal analytics insights: lessons for a GA4 transition

The conference bit of BrightonSEO is happening tomorrow, and for those who aren't going along we thought it might be nice to post the little piece I wrote for the newspapers they're distributing at the conference this year. If you are going, look out for us and say hi, and make sure to come along to Dara's talk in the afternoon! When Universal Analytics came out of beta earlier this year, many were overwhelmed by the plethora of new features. Not a day goes by without a client asking us "how do

Adam Englebright11 Sept 2014

Adam's Analytics Adventure: Week 1

<h1>Day One</h1> Upon alighting from the bus as I arrived for my first day of work, I found myself crossing the road next to a group with whom I immediately felt a degree of kinship – casually dressed (but not overly so), a scattering of black-plastic-rimmed glasses – the sort of people who, upon immediate visual inspection, you might peg as the employees of some kind of dotcom, web 2.0 startup. Such proved to be the case, in fact, as they all funneled into the shared office space where I w

Adam Englebright4 Jul 2014

Analytics planning: the heart of a truly measurable digital strategy

Google Analytics is free and that’s a wonderful thing. But it does mean people can often undervalue the reports and the benefits that a truly structured approach to analytics brings to a business. Sadly, more often than not, a developer or webmaster adds the default Google Analytics tracking code to a website and leaves it at that. Trawling through the reports to find any kind of insight is left up to an analyst or marketing executive – who, later, attempts to find some kind of meaning in this

Steven Elliott21 Nov 2013