1 00:00:15,000 --> 00:00:17,530 Dara: On today's episode, Dan and I dig up a favourite topic 2 00:00:17,550 --> 00:00:19,290 of ours, which is sessions. 3 00:00:19,680 --> 00:00:24,000 So we talk about how GA4 has released a few updates that have actually 4 00:00:24,230 --> 00:00:28,195 taken things a little bit backwards towards how Universal used to be. 5 00:00:28,444 --> 00:00:30,394 We talk about whether that's a good thing or a bad thing and 6 00:00:30,394 --> 00:00:31,985 what it might mean for the future. 7 00:00:32,224 --> 00:00:34,414 Daniel: And speaking of the future, let us know how we're doing. 8 00:00:34,414 --> 00:00:37,414 Check out the show notes for a Google form, which gives us a bit of feedback 9 00:00:37,414 --> 00:00:41,073 around the podcast, me and Dara, you can be completely anonymous, be nice though. 10 00:00:41,133 --> 00:00:43,113 But just give us a bit of feedback on the podcast, what you'd like to hear 11 00:00:43,113 --> 00:00:44,543 and people you'd like us to speak to. 12 00:00:44,703 --> 00:00:48,573 And of course give us a rating and a review on the podcast platform of 13 00:00:48,573 --> 00:00:51,938 your choice, that just helps us be heard by more people and obviously I 14 00:00:52,028 --> 00:00:55,898 base my value to society on the number of subscribers we have, so whatever 15 00:00:55,898 --> 00:01:00,038 you do there will directly impact my professional employment status. 16 00:01:01,148 --> 00:01:01,898 Dara: Enjoy the episode. 17 00:01:02,228 --> 00:01:02,798 Daniel: Enjoy. 18 00:01:03,248 --> 00:01:06,218 Dara: Hello, and welcome back to The Measure Pod, a podcast for 19 00:01:06,218 --> 00:01:07,838 analytics and data enthusiasts. 20 00:01:07,898 --> 00:01:09,808 I'm Dara, I'm CEO at Measurelab. 21 00:01:10,028 --> 00:01:11,438 Daniel: And I'm Dan, I'm also here. 22 00:01:11,798 --> 00:01:14,258 Dara: A very minimalist introduction today, Dan, you want to get 23 00:01:14,258 --> 00:01:15,428 straight down to business, do you? 24 00:01:15,668 --> 00:01:18,038 Daniel: Well, I thought these kind of episodes where it's just me and you and we 25 00:01:18,038 --> 00:01:21,188 don't have a guest, people are only going to listen if they're already familiar with 26 00:01:21,188 --> 00:01:23,188 us or the podcast, at least in some way. 27 00:01:23,288 --> 00:01:28,433 So, it's me and you again together, alone, talking about analytics and 28 00:01:28,433 --> 00:01:31,303 things that, the best way to put it is grind our gears, I suppose. 29 00:01:32,003 --> 00:01:33,153 Dara: Yes, exactly. 30 00:01:33,173 --> 00:01:35,898 We're digging up an old favourite today. 31 00:01:36,018 --> 00:01:39,528 So there was a recent bit of news, I think about a week ago at the time 32 00:01:39,528 --> 00:01:45,168 of recording this, that GA4 are going to now have two counting methods for 33 00:01:45,168 --> 00:01:49,428 conversion events, you're going to have once per event and once per session 34 00:01:49,578 --> 00:01:51,258 to use a favourite word of mine. 35 00:01:51,348 --> 00:01:55,218 So this actually takes us back pretty much to episode two, believe it or 36 00:01:55,218 --> 00:02:00,233 not, where we had our famous debate about the wonderful session metric. 37 00:02:00,803 --> 00:02:01,613 Daniel: Famous, sure. 38 00:02:01,823 --> 00:02:04,613 I don't know if anyone ever, you know, we had only listeners back then. 39 00:02:04,613 --> 00:02:05,819 Well, or if we do today. 40 00:02:06,869 --> 00:02:10,993 Yeah, but no, it is a good conversation because back then GA4 was new. 41 00:02:10,993 --> 00:02:13,153 It might have even been, you know, app plus web. 42 00:02:13,153 --> 00:02:16,903 And it was coming at this with a very old school Firebase analytics 43 00:02:16,908 --> 00:02:19,963 mentality, which is there is no sessions, you have to do the sessionization 44 00:02:19,968 --> 00:02:21,493 yourself, learn to live with that. 45 00:02:21,523 --> 00:02:23,323 And everything was event based or user based. 46 00:02:23,323 --> 00:02:26,533 And then we had this a great idea to have this kind of debate where 47 00:02:26,533 --> 00:02:28,693 you were on the side of the fence where the session's not dead. 48 00:02:28,753 --> 00:02:31,743 And I'm like, well, let's just move to users and events, let's just move 49 00:02:31,743 --> 00:02:35,283 with the times, but, and we're not here talking about accounting method 50 00:02:35,283 --> 00:02:37,983 of conversions in GA4, that's not the basis of this whole conversation. 51 00:02:37,983 --> 00:02:40,593 But it led into an interesting conversation earlier today when we 52 00:02:40,593 --> 00:02:44,275 were thinking about this episode and, and actually it's this slow but steady 53 00:02:44,275 --> 00:02:47,335 kind of like going back on itself that Google Analytics 4 is doing. 54 00:02:47,365 --> 00:02:51,115 And so it came out the gate really strong saying, no, we've evolved, 55 00:02:51,145 --> 00:02:54,205 we are going to use users and events and sessions or a thing in 56 00:02:54,205 --> 00:02:55,525 the past, stop using sessions, but. 57 00:02:55,860 --> 00:02:59,130 Slowly but surely, and this is just the most recent nail in the coffin, 58 00:02:59,250 --> 00:03:02,850 Google Analytics 4 is going back and reintroducing all of the things, the 59 00:03:02,850 --> 00:03:07,370 sessionization or the session-based things we had in GA3 that it said 60 00:03:07,400 --> 00:03:10,610 that we didn't need anymore, but has been slowly reintroducing them. 61 00:03:10,610 --> 00:03:13,880 So obviously we're talking about a way of counting conversions 62 00:03:13,880 --> 00:03:15,830 by sessions or by events. 63 00:03:15,830 --> 00:03:17,690 So in a sense, recreating goals, right? 64 00:03:17,690 --> 00:03:18,770 Goals were a session level. 65 00:03:18,860 --> 00:03:21,330 We've now got a way to recreate goals in GA4. 66 00:03:21,350 --> 00:03:23,650 But some of the other ones that they've you know, not so recently 67 00:03:23,650 --> 00:03:27,900 done, but still since it came out of beta, they introduced average session 68 00:03:27,900 --> 00:03:30,465 duration which was a metric that never existed because it's all about 69 00:03:30,465 --> 00:03:32,145 engagement time, not session duration. 70 00:03:32,150 --> 00:03:34,996 It's also implemented session level conversion rates and 71 00:03:35,001 --> 00:03:36,526 even views per session. 72 00:03:36,526 --> 00:03:38,896 And one would even say things like bounce rate, introducing bounce 73 00:03:38,896 --> 00:03:40,726 rate was a reaction to this where. 74 00:03:40,966 --> 00:03:45,136 They're slowly but surely adding in these session metrics because of the, 75 00:03:45,136 --> 00:03:49,346 I suppose, well, I can only assume negative reaction of the people that 76 00:03:49,346 --> 00:03:51,956 are coming from Universal Analytics saying, where are my numbers that 77 00:03:51,956 --> 00:03:54,836 you told me were so important in one platform that don't exist in this one? 78 00:03:54,956 --> 00:03:57,631 Dara: Well, this is what I'm really curious to know about because we 79 00:03:57,636 --> 00:04:00,841 don't know what we don't know, but I'm not hearing about a lot 80 00:04:00,841 --> 00:04:02,491 of kickback on some of these. 81 00:04:02,491 --> 00:04:04,441 Obviously there's been a lot of, what should we call it? 82 00:04:04,446 --> 00:04:08,366 Like there's been, there's been some disgruntled chat about GA4 and it's, 83 00:04:08,366 --> 00:04:11,696 you know, especially maybe go back six months where there was still kind 84 00:04:11,696 --> 00:04:14,736 of a lot of issues with it, or maybe like people were complaining about 85 00:04:14,736 --> 00:04:16,646 it, not kind of having feature parity. 86 00:04:16,696 --> 00:04:21,921 I don't know that I'm aware personally of too many people griping about how it 87 00:04:21,921 --> 00:04:25,431 doesn't match the kind of sessionization used by Universal Analytics. 88 00:04:25,431 --> 00:04:29,061 I certainly haven't heard anybody say, oh, I'm really annoyed that I can't get 89 00:04:29,061 --> 00:04:32,691 a, you know, an equivalent of a goal where I get conversions once per session. 90 00:04:32,751 --> 00:04:35,451 So I'd be really curious to know whether that is actually happening 91 00:04:35,451 --> 00:04:37,971 and Google are feeling the heat and we're just not aware of it. 92 00:04:38,211 --> 00:04:39,921 Or whether there's some other motivation for it. 93 00:04:39,921 --> 00:04:43,551 Because you're right when GA4 came out, it was this perfect opportunity 94 00:04:43,551 --> 00:04:46,251 for them to just kind of take a hard stance and say, do you know what? 95 00:04:46,461 --> 00:04:49,521 You might not like it, but you've got no choice, it's a new platform, 96 00:04:49,521 --> 00:04:50,871 you need to adapt, and that's it. 97 00:04:51,411 --> 00:04:54,991 But they seem to be just gradually, gradually stepping back and back and 98 00:04:54,991 --> 00:04:58,261 back and reintroducing things that just make it that little bit more 99 00:04:58,321 --> 00:05:02,311 like Universal Analytics, or maybe not more like it, but just provide 100 00:05:02,311 --> 00:05:05,936 that little bit of a safety blanket for people who maybe are still kind of 101 00:05:05,936 --> 00:05:07,526 thinking, where are my metrics gone? 102 00:05:07,656 --> 00:05:09,726 Daniel: Yeah, and I'm all one for these features by the way, I'm 103 00:05:09,726 --> 00:05:11,976 not anti these sessionize metrics. 104 00:05:11,976 --> 00:05:14,076 I think for me it's like, and I'm all one for having choice, 105 00:05:14,076 --> 00:05:16,116 you know, put the metrics in and they're not there by default. 106 00:05:16,146 --> 00:05:19,146 You have to edit the reports and add them in, in most cases, or, or create 107 00:05:19,146 --> 00:05:21,096 an explore exploration to see these. 108 00:05:21,096 --> 00:05:24,246 But I think for me it's like a, it is almost feels like an 109 00:05:24,246 --> 00:05:28,251 admission of being wrong rather than a kind of look cool new stuff. 110 00:05:28,251 --> 00:05:31,941 It's almost like fine, okay, you know, big sigh as they're kind 111 00:05:31,941 --> 00:05:33,571 of like doing it disgruntledly. 112 00:05:33,591 --> 00:05:35,668 So I think this is the feeling I have around it. 113 00:05:35,718 --> 00:05:38,248 It is not a positive, here's new stuff to play with. 114 00:05:38,248 --> 00:05:42,283 It's a kind of fine you win, whatever, and you're quite right in terms of, 115 00:05:42,423 --> 00:05:45,713 you know, to the layman, you know, no one gives a shit to be fair. 116 00:05:45,713 --> 00:05:48,143 Like this isn't, you know, going to break anything or kind of 117 00:05:48,143 --> 00:05:49,553 change anyone's lives dramatically. 118 00:05:49,913 --> 00:05:53,503 I think there's fewer people with louder voices and it's very like clickbait, 119 00:05:53,563 --> 00:05:56,443 you know, popular opinions to have to hate something when things come out. 120 00:05:56,443 --> 00:05:59,683 So we've seen that a lot with GA4 over the last couple of years and it's kind 121 00:05:59,683 --> 00:06:01,398 of, it's almost the cool thing to hate it. 122 00:06:01,458 --> 00:06:04,428 And it's the cool thing to be like, you know, it doesn't have bounce rate and 123 00:06:04,428 --> 00:06:07,488 it always had, you just got engagement rate and you got the inverse right? 124 00:06:07,488 --> 00:06:08,238 And that's bounce rate. 125 00:06:08,238 --> 00:06:11,048 And it doesn't have bounce rate because it's not there when you log in or 126 00:06:11,048 --> 00:06:12,758 things like it doesn't have this report. 127 00:06:13,013 --> 00:06:15,473 But it gives you a feature to create any report you want and 128 00:06:15,473 --> 00:06:17,153 create your own navigational menu. 129 00:06:17,203 --> 00:06:19,933 I always think of it to the kind of Dunning Kruger effect you know, 130 00:06:19,933 --> 00:06:22,913 little knowledge is dangerous because you feel like you know lots. 131 00:06:22,913 --> 00:06:25,793 And a lot of people come out of the gate being like, I can't use 132 00:06:25,793 --> 00:06:27,923 it, it doesn't have this report and it doesn't have this metric. 133 00:06:27,923 --> 00:06:30,713 And I was like, well, in a sense it does have this report and does have this metric 134 00:06:30,713 --> 00:06:33,023 you just have to go into it a bit further or have to know what you're looking at 135 00:06:33,028 --> 00:06:34,673 or edit it or customise it in some way. 136 00:06:34,673 --> 00:06:37,193 And yes, putting it behind a layer of a couple of clicks 137 00:06:37,198 --> 00:06:38,673 before it was after one click. 138 00:06:38,673 --> 00:06:40,053 It was the first thing you saw that is different. 139 00:06:40,113 --> 00:06:41,853 But then maybe that's not a bad thing. 140 00:06:41,853 --> 00:06:45,543 Maybe it's going to stop making people think that bounce rate is a KPI and 141 00:06:45,543 --> 00:06:48,723 average session durations is a KPI and all of the numbers that Google put 142 00:06:48,723 --> 00:06:51,963 in front of you when you logged into Universal Analytics, people inherited 143 00:06:51,963 --> 00:06:55,008 as KPIs because they didn't know better and that's not their fault, it's 144 00:06:55,008 --> 00:06:58,428 just that Google provided, you know, someone somewhere in the product team 145 00:06:58,433 --> 00:07:02,088 of Google many years ago decided to put these numbers, surface these numbers 146 00:07:02,088 --> 00:07:04,398 on a dashboard, on some page of GA. 147 00:07:04,488 --> 00:07:08,153 You know, I wonder if they knew then the level of impact it would have and make, 148 00:07:08,158 --> 00:07:11,303 you know, every marketer use bounce rate in their dashboards going forward, just 149 00:07:11,303 --> 00:07:12,863 because someone made a choice back then. 150 00:07:12,863 --> 00:07:15,623 But I liked the fact that they've kind of gone back a little 151 00:07:15,623 --> 00:07:16,583 bit and rethought about that. 152 00:07:16,583 --> 00:07:19,823 Like you said, like a, it's a fresh start, but I think there's a lot of people that, 153 00:07:19,883 --> 00:07:22,973 like I said, don't know enough about the opportunities and the cool stuff 154 00:07:22,973 --> 00:07:25,763 you can do, and the fact that they exist anyway, but they're kind of shouting and 155 00:07:25,763 --> 00:07:29,903 they're the people on LinkedIn saying, GA4s crap because insert your thing here. 156 00:07:29,933 --> 00:07:32,033 And maybe they're just trying to address some of these things, which, 157 00:07:32,038 --> 00:07:34,943 you know, realistically probably don't take that much effort from Google 158 00:07:34,943 --> 00:07:37,833 to add in the inverse of engagement rate and call it bounce rate. 159 00:07:37,953 --> 00:07:41,193 Sure, that's probably not a lot of dev work, but you know, a lot of this stuff 160 00:07:41,193 --> 00:07:44,523 could have been spent developing features we truly need, rather than accounting for 161 00:07:44,523 --> 00:07:48,623 metrics that already exist in some form or we can calculate them in some way. 162 00:07:48,693 --> 00:07:50,043 Rant over, sorry I'll let you go. 163 00:07:50,243 --> 00:07:52,358 Dara: And aren't particularly useful in the first place yeah. 164 00:07:52,928 --> 00:07:54,638 Daniel: Well, yeah, I mean there is that, I mean, okay 165 00:07:54,638 --> 00:07:56,168 sorry, just a tangent on that. 166 00:07:56,408 --> 00:08:00,658 Bounce rate is more useful now in GA4 because it's defined differently. 167 00:08:00,988 --> 00:08:04,168 So bounce rate, I have a soft spot for bounce rate or engagement rate. 168 00:08:04,168 --> 00:08:07,698 I always say that universal analytics was the glass half empty and it had the bounce 169 00:08:07,698 --> 00:08:10,568 rate in GA4 defaults to the engagement rate, which is the glass half full. 170 00:08:10,583 --> 00:08:13,878 So I like to be the more optimistic side, but now that they've redefined 171 00:08:13,878 --> 00:08:17,348 it, accounting for you know, engagement time and conversion events. 172 00:08:17,348 --> 00:08:20,288 I quite like the definition more so than Universal, I think 173 00:08:20,288 --> 00:08:21,338 it can be really relevant. 174 00:08:21,388 --> 00:08:24,378 The thing is it's not the same, this is a lovely Googlism where they've 175 00:08:24,378 --> 00:08:27,678 introduced something called exactly the same thing, but define it differently. 176 00:08:27,778 --> 00:08:29,878 But I do have a software for now, I do think it's useful. 177 00:08:30,018 --> 00:08:33,648 Dara: It is more useful at least, I guess the same issue applies, which 178 00:08:33,648 --> 00:08:35,718 is that it can be just misinterpreted. 179 00:08:35,768 --> 00:08:38,048 I think if you know what you're doing with it and you drill down and you 180 00:08:38,048 --> 00:08:41,168 use it in a meaningful way, I think the problem has always been, it's 181 00:08:41,168 --> 00:08:44,888 just seen as being a, you know, low engagement is bad, high bounce rate is 182 00:08:44,888 --> 00:08:47,598 bad and it's not always that clear cut. 183 00:08:47,598 --> 00:08:51,098 But something that just came to me on this recent change to introduce the 184 00:08:51,158 --> 00:08:53,528 kind of two counting methods for events. 185 00:08:53,888 --> 00:08:56,258 I wonder, could it relate to Google Ads? 186 00:08:56,258 --> 00:08:58,686 Is that where maybe the kickback has come from? 187 00:08:58,696 --> 00:09:03,946 If you're importing goals from Universal Analytics, maybe they need this to enable 188 00:09:03,946 --> 00:09:05,866 you to match what you've been doing. 189 00:09:05,986 --> 00:09:08,416 I didn't think of this until now, but maybe they need it to be able 190 00:09:08,416 --> 00:09:11,866 to match what you're doing in Google Ads with Universal Analytics. 191 00:09:12,016 --> 00:09:15,526 Daniel: I can imagine if it's a feature that GA4 is releasing now, it 192 00:09:15,531 --> 00:09:17,386 is in some way related to Google Ads. 193 00:09:17,486 --> 00:09:20,996 Everything is, they may as well just call it Google Ads Analytics. 194 00:09:20,996 --> 00:09:22,676 You know, they may as well just rebrand it, you know? 195 00:09:22,726 --> 00:09:25,626 I think that there's going to be a lot of stuff, which is going to be about moving 196 00:09:25,631 --> 00:09:29,861 people over come the 1st of July from an ads perspective over to GA4 is seamless 197 00:09:29,866 --> 00:09:34,121 and is automated and as exactly the same as possible as it once was before they 198 00:09:34,121 --> 00:09:35,681 can start capitalising on the new stuff. 199 00:09:35,711 --> 00:09:38,751 I'm going to find it very interesting when they do all this because we spoke 200 00:09:38,751 --> 00:09:42,221 on the last couple of episodes, but if you're a marketer or in the analytics 201 00:09:42,221 --> 00:09:45,121 space, you might already know, but Google are removing access to a bunch 202 00:09:45,121 --> 00:09:48,991 of the attribution models this coming May, and then again in September, 203 00:09:49,081 --> 00:09:51,901 and they're moving all of the GA4 conversion exports to Google ads. 204 00:09:51,901 --> 00:09:55,611 They're moving that over to a data-driven attribution export and they're doing, 205 00:09:55,971 --> 00:09:59,451 you know, full credit export rather than this weird kind of last click stuff, 206 00:09:59,451 --> 00:10:00,381 and then do the modeling over there. 207 00:10:00,381 --> 00:10:02,481 So in a sense, they're aligning the two tools, and I think 208 00:10:02,481 --> 00:10:03,531 this is another one of those. 209 00:10:03,531 --> 00:10:06,521 So it's aligning, again this idea of measuring a click, 210 00:10:06,521 --> 00:10:07,511 measuring a session, right? 211 00:10:07,581 --> 00:10:11,121 And for e-comm, you probably want to count every purchase because if they make 212 00:10:11,121 --> 00:10:12,621 two purchases in the session, why not? 213 00:10:12,681 --> 00:10:13,011 Why not? 214 00:10:13,011 --> 00:10:16,791 There might be two genuine things, but for a lot of, you know, B2B brands or 215 00:10:16,791 --> 00:10:20,071 maybe some of these softer conversion points, maybe engaging with a piece 216 00:10:20,071 --> 00:10:22,801 of content that might happen multiple times in a session and you don't 217 00:10:22,801 --> 00:10:26,461 want to overcount, you don't want to over reward the success of a click. 218 00:10:26,461 --> 00:10:28,681 You don't want a conversion rate basically of over a hundred percent, 219 00:10:28,921 --> 00:10:30,451 which is a possibility that way round. 220 00:10:30,751 --> 00:10:34,501 And so maybe this just forces it to be a bit more, you know, sensible to 221 00:10:34,501 --> 00:10:36,181 the untrained eye I suppose, maybe. 222 00:10:36,221 --> 00:10:37,381 Dara: Yeah and, and I like that. 223 00:10:37,671 --> 00:10:41,241 I always liked that in Universal, where you could have something 224 00:10:41,241 --> 00:10:42,321 as a goal and an event. 225 00:10:42,321 --> 00:10:46,011 So if it was something like viewing content or downloading a file or 226 00:10:46,011 --> 00:10:48,951 watching a video or something like that, that could happen multiple times. 227 00:10:49,261 --> 00:10:53,541 You might want to just have that yes or no flag to say, did this session contain 228 00:10:53,631 --> 00:10:55,821 that particular thing one or more times. 229 00:10:55,881 --> 00:10:58,251 But then if it is something like that where it's lots of different videos 230 00:10:58,251 --> 00:11:01,381 across the site, you can use the events to go in and see the total count. 231 00:11:01,381 --> 00:11:04,061 So having the ability to do both, I always found quite useful. 232 00:11:04,066 --> 00:11:08,031 So I do like this update, it's this broader point about are they, you know, 233 00:11:08,331 --> 00:11:12,411 is this the end of it now or are, is it going to continue to introduce more 234 00:11:12,561 --> 00:11:16,701 aspects that might kind of, that could be seen as being kind of backtracking 235 00:11:16,706 --> 00:11:19,811 a little bit and pulling things back a little bit more in line with the way 236 00:11:19,811 --> 00:11:24,401 it used to be as opposed to this idea that it's a totally new data model and 237 00:11:24,401 --> 00:11:26,921 everybody should be excited about that because it's going to be better in every 238 00:11:26,921 --> 00:11:29,171 way and it's all events and user based. 239 00:11:29,261 --> 00:11:32,111 Because I remember even when we, just for a bit of extra context for 240 00:11:32,111 --> 00:11:36,721 our listeners as well, when we were first talking about GA4, we were kind 241 00:11:36,721 --> 00:11:40,091 of jokingly arguing about whether a session even existed or not, and it was 242 00:11:40,121 --> 00:11:43,781 a little bit complicated and there was very little within the interface that 243 00:11:43,781 --> 00:11:47,781 would suggest that there were sessions, whereas now it definitely is looking 244 00:11:47,781 --> 00:11:51,240 like it's back there, it's fully front and center within the interface again. 245 00:11:51,400 --> 00:11:52,240 Daniel: And the schema, right? 246 00:11:52,240 --> 00:11:55,540 I mean, even back when we were using Firebase analytics, which is 247 00:11:55,540 --> 00:11:58,810 GA4, but when it was app only, and they didn't even have the metric of 248 00:11:58,810 --> 00:12:01,930 sessions in there, we had to process them and calculate them in BigQuery. 249 00:12:02,050 --> 00:12:03,910 We had to process and calculate sessions, right? 250 00:12:04,120 --> 00:12:06,610 And so we've gone from a point where they really didn't 251 00:12:06,615 --> 00:12:08,170 want to have sessions at all. 252 00:12:08,170 --> 00:12:11,200 They didn't even give you a metric of sessions to now where they have 253 00:12:11,200 --> 00:12:12,770 created it in the kind of data model. 254 00:12:12,770 --> 00:12:15,860 The schema kind of, in a sense, contains sessions to be able to 255 00:12:15,950 --> 00:12:19,130 sessionize data so that we can work out these type of metrics. 256 00:12:19,130 --> 00:12:23,655 So we've gone full circle really, from a kind of, we don't need these, we're not 257 00:12:23,655 --> 00:12:26,480 even going to consider them to, okay, we'll include it in our data model. 258 00:12:27,050 --> 00:12:29,938 You know, I think it's a full 180, right, coming back on themselves. 259 00:12:30,025 --> 00:12:32,635 Maybe it's just a reaction to web measurement. 260 00:12:32,635 --> 00:12:35,345 Maybe in a app environment it's less relevant I don't know. 261 00:12:35,445 --> 00:12:37,085 I can probably argue that both ways. 262 00:12:37,715 --> 00:12:42,305 But the thing with this whole concept is, as you said, Dara, is like, is it 263 00:12:42,455 --> 00:12:44,435 done or is there going to be more here? 264 00:12:44,495 --> 00:12:47,375 Are they going to go full steam ahead and kind of reintroduce 265 00:12:47,435 --> 00:12:48,695 everything we had before? 266 00:12:48,875 --> 00:12:50,735 To be fair, I don't know what else there is I don't know. 267 00:12:50,965 --> 00:12:51,625 Do you have a wishlist? 268 00:12:51,625 --> 00:12:53,935 Do you have a bucket list of stuff that you'd like to see in this kind 269 00:12:53,935 --> 00:12:56,345 of, in this kind of area in GA4? 270 00:12:56,555 --> 00:12:58,385 Dara: No, off the top of my head, no. 271 00:12:58,385 --> 00:13:01,795 I mean, the only thing I guess that, this isn't really a wishlist as such, 272 00:13:01,795 --> 00:13:05,373 but I still find, and I know some other people do find it a little bit more 273 00:13:05,373 --> 00:13:08,373 confusing now in terms of attribution, because you've got your, you know, 274 00:13:08,373 --> 00:13:11,343 you've got your first user, you've got your session, and then you've got your 275 00:13:11,343 --> 00:13:13,383 event and it's all a little confusing. 276 00:13:13,543 --> 00:13:15,843 They could maybe do with kind of pulling that together a 277 00:13:15,843 --> 00:13:17,373 little bit and clarifying it. 278 00:13:17,463 --> 00:13:20,463 But in terms of like a wish list of what else is missing, there's 279 00:13:20,463 --> 00:13:21,643 nothing that comes to mind. 280 00:13:21,743 --> 00:13:22,403 Daniel: Maybe that's it. 281 00:13:22,463 --> 00:13:24,083 If you're listening, Google, we're all good. 282 00:13:24,443 --> 00:13:25,853 There's nothing, there's nothing left. 283 00:13:25,943 --> 00:13:28,623 Dara: Well, nothing that comes to mind, but that doesn't 284 00:13:28,643 --> 00:13:29,513 mean there isn't anything. 285 00:13:29,873 --> 00:13:33,023 Daniel: Well, if I remember rightly, Dara, I think you won the argument about 286 00:13:33,028 --> 00:13:34,733 whether it's a user versus session. 287 00:13:34,733 --> 00:13:37,013 So you are speaking for everyone that loves sessions here. 288 00:13:37,283 --> 00:13:38,633 Dara: Did I just decide that I won? 289 00:13:38,638 --> 00:13:40,263 Daniel: Yeah, I think you might have done. 290 00:13:40,318 --> 00:13:45,108 I think hindsight has proved you did, I think this episode is confirmation. 291 00:13:45,158 --> 00:13:46,958 Dara: Well, that's true actually yeah, yeah. 292 00:13:47,048 --> 00:13:50,058 But there must have been something I guess this is a, a question for you, 293 00:13:50,063 --> 00:13:52,158 but with the, with apps, you're right. 294 00:13:52,158 --> 00:13:55,653 Like when it was Firebase, the idea of a session was slightly more alien. 295 00:13:55,658 --> 00:13:58,743 But it's still useful to know, even with apps, like whether you call it a 296 00:13:58,743 --> 00:14:01,893 session or give it a different name, it's like a collection of events 297 00:14:01,893 --> 00:14:04,368 within a confined period of time. 298 00:14:04,488 --> 00:14:08,948 I think I maybe made this argument when we had the debate, I do see value in having 299 00:14:09,458 --> 00:14:15,858 a you know, a collection of events that either happen within a period of time or 300 00:14:15,858 --> 00:14:18,708 are tied to a single marketing source. 301 00:14:18,828 --> 00:14:20,898 So some way of saying this was an app. 302 00:14:21,228 --> 00:14:24,708 Because it, whether you're using an app or whether you're present the internet 303 00:14:24,708 --> 00:14:28,548 on your tv, or whether you're on your laptop or whatever, they are separate. 304 00:14:28,548 --> 00:14:32,148 You know, you go there for a purpose and it is either time boxed or 305 00:14:32,148 --> 00:14:35,033 it is tied to a specific purpose. 306 00:14:35,133 --> 00:14:37,683 So I like the idea of having the session. 307 00:14:37,863 --> 00:14:41,373 I feel like I'm just rehashing the arguments that we made all 308 00:14:41,373 --> 00:14:43,263 those months and months ago. 309 00:14:43,383 --> 00:14:44,643 Daniel: But I think they're still relevant right. 310 00:14:44,643 --> 00:14:46,768 And I'm going to come back to you with the answer I had back then, which 311 00:14:46,768 --> 00:14:48,598 was the idea of a session day, right? 312 00:14:48,688 --> 00:14:52,798 And a session day is this, I feel a happy medium and it's 313 00:14:52,798 --> 00:14:53,848 something that you can calculate. 314 00:14:53,848 --> 00:14:56,968 I think I even wrote a blog about it, calculate in Looker Studio, if 315 00:14:56,968 --> 00:15:01,188 this was a thing that's now rest in peace, Stadia, introduced and how they 316 00:15:01,188 --> 00:15:04,593 rewarded their publishers and their kind of game developers based on a 317 00:15:04,593 --> 00:15:06,993 current, a financial revenue share. 318 00:15:06,993 --> 00:15:09,333 But anyway, it doesn't matter how it came about, but the idea is 319 00:15:09,333 --> 00:15:13,563 that how many days has this user visited your site over this period? 320 00:15:13,568 --> 00:15:16,383 So if I visited once in a day or a hundred times in a day, it doesn't 321 00:15:16,383 --> 00:15:17,883 matter, there's one session day. 322 00:15:17,973 --> 00:15:22,353 So I've had one day of sessions and so I think this kind of arbitrary, 323 00:15:22,358 --> 00:15:25,383 like 30 minute window of inactivity, which you can tweak up or down. 324 00:15:25,383 --> 00:15:28,683 I think that maybe is the thing for me that's a bit arbitrary and a bit maybe 325 00:15:28,773 --> 00:15:30,723 old school in the thinking behind it. 326 00:15:30,843 --> 00:15:33,303 But if they just said, you know, over the last couple of days 327 00:15:33,303 --> 00:15:35,423 you had 10,000 session days. 328 00:15:35,423 --> 00:15:38,633 You had 10,000 times someone visited your site within a day. 329 00:15:38,633 --> 00:15:41,363 You know, I think that's great and then you can go down further and you can find 330 00:15:41,363 --> 00:15:45,183 the users that did a bunch of stuff on the website within a day, and you can see 331 00:15:45,183 --> 00:15:48,933 the users that did a single visit or page view within that day, but they're still 332 00:15:49,083 --> 00:15:51,093 kind of collectively counted as one thing. 333 00:15:51,363 --> 00:15:53,493 The way I worked it out, by the way, if you are interested and I'll 334 00:15:53,493 --> 00:15:57,513 link off in the show notes, is just export users by day, unique users by 335 00:15:57,513 --> 00:15:59,103 day, and then just sum them, right. 336 00:15:59,103 --> 00:16:02,353 And the thing you're told never to do with users but some of them by day because 337 00:16:02,353 --> 00:16:05,653 you're getting a unique count of users by day and then just sum that total. 338 00:16:05,653 --> 00:16:07,693 And I think that gives you this metric of session days. 339 00:16:07,813 --> 00:16:10,178 And like I say, it's that middle point between sessions and 340 00:16:10,178 --> 00:16:11,608 users that can be quite useful. 341 00:16:11,993 --> 00:16:15,503 Especially with things like changing technologies like safari and seven day 342 00:16:15,503 --> 00:16:17,003 cookie lifetimes and stuff like that. 343 00:16:17,013 --> 00:16:19,743 It doesn't really matter about the user as long as that cookie 344 00:16:19,743 --> 00:16:21,273 lasts the day, you're all good. 345 00:16:21,573 --> 00:16:24,993 Dara: Maybe I've softened since episode two, but I won't argue with you, but 346 00:16:24,993 --> 00:16:29,223 as long as there's a way, I guess we're agreeing on that there needs to be a 347 00:16:29,223 --> 00:16:32,403 way of looking that's more, I don't know if it's right to say more granular or 348 00:16:32,403 --> 00:16:36,663 not, but there needs to be something between a user and an event and whether 349 00:16:36,663 --> 00:16:41,168 that's sessions or session days, I think it's useful to have that, you know, 350 00:16:41,198 --> 00:16:42,948 bucket, whatever way it's calculated. 351 00:16:42,948 --> 00:16:45,678 But there's got to be something between events and users otherwise it 352 00:16:45,678 --> 00:16:47,278 feels like there's something lacking. 353 00:16:47,458 --> 00:16:49,078 That's the common ground, we can agree on that. 354 00:16:49,258 --> 00:16:50,668 Daniel: So what's next from Google? 355 00:16:50,798 --> 00:16:52,148 What do you think's coming next? 356 00:16:52,148 --> 00:16:55,058 They've started doing this, they've been drip feeding these small changes 357 00:16:55,058 --> 00:16:56,648 and tweaks and updates back into this. 358 00:16:57,038 --> 00:17:00,428 Do you see this going somewhere or do you feel this is a, almost 359 00:17:00,433 --> 00:17:03,458 like a vanity update and maybe this will kind of fizzle out eventually. 360 00:17:03,458 --> 00:17:06,303 Do you think there's anything more behind this than maybe what 361 00:17:06,303 --> 00:17:07,713 we're kind of clocking onto? 362 00:17:07,783 --> 00:17:11,203 Dara: Whether it's just in my head now, and not just from us talking about it 363 00:17:11,293 --> 00:17:15,493 a couple of minutes ago, or from you mentioning it on previous episodes, but 364 00:17:15,493 --> 00:17:20,983 this idea about them gradually pulling ads in GA4, well, not even just Google 365 00:17:20,983 --> 00:17:23,863 Ads, but the whole kind of GMP ecosystem. 366 00:17:23,863 --> 00:17:28,308 GA4 is very much being kind of like pulled into the middle, even more 367 00:17:28,308 --> 00:17:30,078 so than maybe it ever was before. 368 00:17:30,148 --> 00:17:33,868 You know, if I had to kind of put a bet on, on where it's, it's going, I think 369 00:17:33,868 --> 00:17:36,718 probably in the background, they're trying to do as much work as they can 370 00:17:36,718 --> 00:17:40,828 to make sure that the backend of ads and, you know, all the stuff we talked 371 00:17:40,828 --> 00:17:44,958 about previously with Alexis where we were talking about SA 360 and DV 360. 372 00:17:44,958 --> 00:17:48,078 I think that there's probably a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes 373 00:17:48,103 --> 00:17:51,883 to make sure all of the, the kind of backend of all of those platforms 374 00:17:51,913 --> 00:17:54,223 is playing as nicely as possible. 375 00:17:54,273 --> 00:17:57,093 And maybe some of this stuff that we're seeing is just the kind of the 376 00:17:57,093 --> 00:17:59,463 visible kind of front end changes. 377 00:17:59,533 --> 00:18:02,288 I'm basically piggybacking off something that you've been saying 378 00:18:02,293 --> 00:18:05,588 for a while, but you know, that I mean, that makes sense, doesn't it? 379 00:18:05,858 --> 00:18:09,828 And even with the data collection, I think, you know, it's definitely heading 380 00:18:09,828 --> 00:18:13,878 in that direction where, you use GA4, that collects the data and then that 381 00:18:13,883 --> 00:18:16,618 feeds into all the other GMP platforms. 382 00:18:16,768 --> 00:18:17,368 Daniel: Yeah, for sure. 383 00:18:17,428 --> 00:18:20,413 I'm just wondering then if there's more to come with the sessionization because 384 00:18:20,413 --> 00:18:22,783 a lot of these tools are based on clicks. 385 00:18:22,903 --> 00:18:27,013 So maybe there is more of a focus to measure the success of a session for 386 00:18:27,013 --> 00:18:29,563 Google Ads, DV 360, SA 360, of course. 387 00:18:30,023 --> 00:18:32,948 And you know, there's very little else It does, right? 388 00:18:32,948 --> 00:18:35,888 In those marketing platforms, it's all about measuring the click and or 389 00:18:35,888 --> 00:18:37,958 impression and click, and then conversion. 390 00:18:38,018 --> 00:18:39,758 You know, I don't know if there's, who knows? 391 00:18:39,758 --> 00:18:42,998 Oh, I think we're going around in circles, but I think we, there's more stuff we feel 392 00:18:43,058 --> 00:18:45,128 is bubbling like a, like a swan, you know? 393 00:18:45,128 --> 00:18:48,038 It's all kind of like drip feeding on top, but it's going crazy underneath that we 394 00:18:48,038 --> 00:18:51,578 maybe don't see, you know, so maybe there, there's more coming, you know, with all 395 00:18:51,578 --> 00:18:54,848 the kind of changes that's coming anyway, that Googles was announced with Google 396 00:18:54,848 --> 00:18:58,638 Ads, there's probably more they're letting on even from what they've announced, and 397 00:18:58,638 --> 00:19:01,518 maybe they'll just be more of the same, you know, going in that same direction. 398 00:19:01,638 --> 00:19:04,718 Dara: I mean, one other thing, this is kind of combining, you're asking about 399 00:19:04,718 --> 00:19:07,858 the wishlist and also your question just now about where it's all heading. 400 00:19:07,908 --> 00:19:09,168 Wouldn't it be great? 401 00:19:09,468 --> 00:19:10,368 Maybe you'll disagree. 402 00:19:10,458 --> 00:19:15,098 Maybe your tune has changed over the time we're working with GA4, but maybe 403 00:19:15,098 --> 00:19:19,148 it would be great if they reintroduce views, which I feel like would work for 404 00:19:19,558 --> 00:19:24,428 like the big ads customers as well because it's not so much fun linking up ads to 405 00:19:24,428 --> 00:19:27,938 GA now when you've got lots of, if you're a big international business with lots 406 00:19:27,938 --> 00:19:32,228 of different sites and sub properties and sub-domains and all the rest of it. 407 00:19:32,408 --> 00:19:36,748 So maybe that would be an interesting announcement if they did reintroduce 408 00:19:36,748 --> 00:19:39,818 views, but I don't know, I'm probably not seeing it happening. 409 00:19:39,998 --> 00:19:42,308 Daniel: That is admitting royal defeat, isn't it? 410 00:19:42,308 --> 00:19:43,013 I think if they introduce that. 411 00:19:43,013 --> 00:19:44,708 Dara: Just call it Universal Analytics then. 412 00:19:44,768 --> 00:19:45,758 Daniel: Yeah, Jesus. 413 00:19:45,828 --> 00:19:46,368 I don't know. 414 00:19:46,368 --> 00:19:49,018 I mean, there's two ways, like a lot of what you have to kind of look 415 00:19:49,018 --> 00:19:52,323 at this through is that Google's a massive company in it for profit and 416 00:19:52,383 --> 00:19:53,763 they're an advertising company, right? 417 00:19:53,823 --> 00:19:56,093 And so, for me there's always that kind of like, well how 418 00:19:56,093 --> 00:19:57,203 would they make money from that? 419 00:19:57,203 --> 00:20:00,743 But I think, you know, monetising it through the GCP for one, so like the 420 00:20:00,743 --> 00:20:04,313 fact that every property can connect to BigQuery, so the more views you give 421 00:20:04,313 --> 00:20:07,493 someone, the more BigQuery exports they'll be able to give you for free right. 422 00:20:07,493 --> 00:20:10,013 Quote unquote, free, doing air quotes for an audio medium. 423 00:20:10,103 --> 00:20:13,468 But the other side of that, I think again, is the processing it must take, this is 424 00:20:13,468 --> 00:20:16,888 where I think that they may have maybe made that bed within Universal Analytics. 425 00:20:16,888 --> 00:20:18,948 Universal analytics went fucking crazy. 426 00:20:18,948 --> 00:20:21,348 Everyone implemented it and all of a sudden they realised for every one 427 00:20:21,348 --> 00:20:24,918 website we track, we are processing this data 10 times on average, maybe. 428 00:20:25,468 --> 00:20:27,478 And I'm wondering if they're like, we are not doing that again. 429 00:20:27,808 --> 00:20:31,468 And so they're just, they have to from a kind of basically a cost 430 00:20:31,468 --> 00:20:33,118 perspective, not offer it out. 431 00:20:33,118 --> 00:20:36,838 And so putting it behind the paywall, and I just riffing on this, we've said 432 00:20:36,843 --> 00:20:38,188 this before, but I'll say it again. 433 00:20:38,398 --> 00:20:41,338 I really hope they introduce a kind of pay as you go model of 434 00:20:41,398 --> 00:20:43,468 GA 360, like they do on Firebase. 435 00:20:43,693 --> 00:20:46,123 On Firebase, you can go in there and you can do pay as you use, 436 00:20:46,123 --> 00:20:47,953 pay as you pay to play in a sense. 437 00:20:48,253 --> 00:20:51,403 You don't have to go all in at like thousands of pounds a month 438 00:20:51,493 --> 00:20:52,663 to get access to everything. 439 00:20:52,723 --> 00:20:56,053 I just need access to sub properties or views, or I just need access 440 00:20:56,053 --> 00:20:58,093 to more API tokens, right? 441 00:20:58,093 --> 00:21:01,873 So that I can get around those crappy fucking limitations and the quotas. 442 00:21:02,203 --> 00:21:05,443 So like, why not just enable someone to link a credit card like in the 443 00:21:05,473 --> 00:21:09,298 GCP, you know, and you pay for volume of usage and each tool has a 444 00:21:09,298 --> 00:21:10,378 different sort of charging method. 445 00:21:10,378 --> 00:21:11,038 Why not do that? 446 00:21:11,038 --> 00:21:14,218 And then all of a sudden just have a screen in the admin in GA4 saying, 447 00:21:14,608 --> 00:21:18,478 put credit card and then give me an extra 50 tokens a month and give me 448 00:21:18,483 --> 00:21:22,468 an extra whatever a month and open up sub properties and maybe that's 449 00:21:22,473 --> 00:21:24,208 based on volume of events, right? 450 00:21:24,208 --> 00:21:26,728 I just feels like such a no-brainer for them to do. 451 00:21:27,448 --> 00:21:30,808 At the moment, it's going 360 for the example you gave a multinational company, 452 00:21:30,813 --> 00:21:33,748 a big multinational company, lots of ads, accounts like, yes, of course they're 453 00:21:33,748 --> 00:21:36,958 right for going to 360 if they're not already, and I'm sorry if that's you. 454 00:21:37,453 --> 00:21:39,313 But yeah, you should start paying for GA because that's 455 00:21:39,313 --> 00:21:40,513 the where they want you to be. 456 00:21:40,513 --> 00:21:44,473 But for everyone else, it's just, so far we've been okay right. 457 00:21:44,473 --> 00:21:47,908 I don't want to jinx it, but with a very few exceptions most of our clients 458 00:21:47,908 --> 00:21:49,318 have adapted to not having views fine. 459 00:21:49,678 --> 00:21:52,408 And it's one of those things, now it's gone, you kind of forget 460 00:21:52,408 --> 00:21:54,268 about it very quickly and then you move on with your lives, right. 461 00:21:54,358 --> 00:21:58,058 Dara: It's really that one use case I think of, you know, it's connecting up 462 00:21:58,948 --> 00:22:02,958 multiple ads accounts cross, you know, a number of different, that old mapping. 463 00:22:02,958 --> 00:22:05,418 And it was never a fun thing to do, but you know, at least you 464 00:22:05,418 --> 00:22:07,078 could kind of do it with Universal. 465 00:22:07,088 --> 00:22:10,948 On the pricing model that wouldn't be a crazy bet to make that all of that 466 00:22:10,948 --> 00:22:15,263 is there on the cloud side of things, it's possibly just a matter of time, 467 00:22:15,323 --> 00:22:18,923 maybe it seems from the outside for us to say, oh, why don't they just switch 468 00:22:18,923 --> 00:22:20,573 over to that kind of pricing model. 469 00:22:20,873 --> 00:22:23,693 Maybe there's an ambition for them to do it, but it might just take a 470 00:22:23,693 --> 00:22:26,808 little bit of time, but I don't know why they would have this separate, 471 00:22:26,808 --> 00:22:31,688 standalone way of charging when that's working so well for them on the GCP. 472 00:22:31,898 --> 00:22:35,700 Daniel: Well, I can almost answer my own question or that question, and I think, 473 00:22:35,730 --> 00:22:40,020 you know, and this is just me completely guessing, but the only way to buy GA 360 474 00:22:40,020 --> 00:22:43,320 right now is going through an advertising agency, a big advertising agency, 475 00:22:43,320 --> 00:22:45,000 which are sales partners of Google. 476 00:22:45,060 --> 00:22:49,210 And in a sense, if they introduce this Pay as You Go model in GA to 477 00:22:49,210 --> 00:22:50,680 go 360 or whatever they call it. 478 00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:55,840 They're just completely undermining and kind of bypassing all of their partners. 479 00:22:55,960 --> 00:22:59,800 And so every single sales partner they've got out there across the world that are, 480 00:22:59,860 --> 00:23:02,950 you know, in bed with Google selling all these licenses, making a cut off 481 00:23:02,950 --> 00:23:07,205 the top, maybe their business is built around selling 360 licenses, they're 482 00:23:07,205 --> 00:23:09,935 basically going to, you know, mess that up overnight if they release this. 483 00:23:09,985 --> 00:23:12,865 Maybe everyone at Google wants to go to this pay as you go model, right? 484 00:23:12,865 --> 00:23:16,165 It'll be easier for them, but I think there's a lot of politics maybe, is 485 00:23:16,165 --> 00:23:17,425 probably the biggest blocker here. 486 00:23:17,695 --> 00:23:20,485 And maybe it is happening, but slowly but surely, maybe it's already 487 00:23:20,485 --> 00:23:22,695 happening and we don't know about it because we are not an advertising 488 00:23:22,700 --> 00:23:23,725 agency we have no idea, right? 489 00:23:23,985 --> 00:23:27,020 Maybe there's something bubbling, but I think we are going to be one of the last 490 00:23:27,020 --> 00:23:30,280 to know alongside, you know, the kind of average Joe, you know, the public because 491 00:23:30,280 --> 00:23:33,705 we are not an advertising agency, but I can imagine if Google are going this 492 00:23:33,705 --> 00:23:35,085 way, which it makes sense for them to do? 493 00:23:35,085 --> 00:23:36,375 And I wouldn't be surprised if they are. 494 00:23:36,495 --> 00:23:40,045 I think there's a lot of groundwork to do to kind of mitigate this 495 00:23:40,045 --> 00:23:41,768 kind of fallout with the agencies. 496 00:23:41,898 --> 00:23:45,798 Dara: All good theories, but let's hope it does end up there one day because I 497 00:23:45,798 --> 00:23:48,948 think that idea of scalable analytics, just like you've got kind of scalable 498 00:23:48,953 --> 00:23:52,263 cloud, I think it would make it even more accessible for a lot of, because 499 00:23:52,263 --> 00:23:55,103 that's what Google Analytics has been all about all along, it's like making it 500 00:23:55,193 --> 00:23:57,473 the most accessible analytics platform. 501 00:23:57,713 --> 00:24:01,133 I think this would take that to its natural conclusion, if you could scale 502 00:24:01,133 --> 00:24:02,603 up and down depending on what you need. 503 00:24:02,723 --> 00:24:06,603 Daniel: Well, bringing it back into sessionization, Dara, GA4 504 00:24:06,623 --> 00:24:09,313 is heading back to session level stuff, I'm sure you are happy. 505 00:24:09,533 --> 00:24:11,383 All of this stuff that we'll be, we've talked about is 506 00:24:11,383 --> 00:24:12,173 going to be in the show notes. 507 00:24:12,173 --> 00:24:15,203 We'll put links to the announcements and some of the metrics that are available, 508 00:24:15,263 --> 00:24:18,783 but the one thing that Google's not done is they've not put them in the reports by 509 00:24:18,783 --> 00:24:20,223 default, you have to go and add these in. 510 00:24:20,553 --> 00:24:23,103 So there is one thing that I'm going to claim a mini victory on 511 00:24:23,163 --> 00:24:24,933 that sessions haven't won just yet. 512 00:24:25,173 --> 00:24:27,513 They're available, but they're not by default. 513 00:24:27,633 --> 00:24:29,763 So I'm going to take that as a mini victory. 514 00:24:29,853 --> 00:24:33,123 Dara: They will be by default for any automatically 515 00:24:33,183 --> 00:24:35,763 migrated goals from Universal. 516 00:24:35,823 --> 00:24:36,123 Daniel: Yes. 517 00:24:36,153 --> 00:24:38,133 Sorry, specifically with the conversions yes. 518 00:24:38,623 --> 00:24:40,003 Because they're going to do them, of course they're going 519 00:24:40,003 --> 00:24:40,713 to do them like for like. 520 00:24:40,763 --> 00:24:43,463 I think I'm still slightly bitter about having, you know, 521 00:24:43,493 --> 00:24:44,513 average session duration. 522 00:24:44,873 --> 00:24:47,873 Dara: Okay, so what our listeners are obviously dying to hear at this 523 00:24:47,873 --> 00:24:50,993 point, Dan, is what you've been doing outside of work to chill out? 524 00:24:51,233 --> 00:24:54,473 Daniel: Well, I've actually just come back from a little weekend away. 525 00:24:54,713 --> 00:24:58,073 Me and my partner, we went to Amsterdam for the weekend and I've never been. 526 00:24:58,253 --> 00:25:02,593 So, we went over there for a, like a Thursday night to a Sunday last 527 00:25:02,593 --> 00:25:04,153 weekend and yeah, it was awesome. 528 00:25:04,213 --> 00:25:06,733 I really enjoyed it, it's a really beautiful place and the people were 529 00:25:06,733 --> 00:25:08,800 awesome and yeah, we did lots of walking. 530 00:25:09,040 --> 00:25:12,730 We didn't get a single tram, tube, bus or anything, and we just walked 531 00:25:12,730 --> 00:25:14,905 everywhere and maybe naively. 532 00:25:15,145 --> 00:25:18,115 It's pretty big walking around, it took forever. 533 00:25:18,275 --> 00:25:20,255 Yeah, we definitely got our steps in for those couple of days. 534 00:25:20,315 --> 00:25:22,925 Lots of good coffee and lots of good food really. 535 00:25:23,035 --> 00:25:24,925 We went into a couple of museums. 536 00:25:24,975 --> 00:25:27,585 We went into a, a couple of galleries, actually more so than museums, but I 537 00:25:27,590 --> 00:25:29,775 wish a really nice but bloody busy man. 538 00:25:29,775 --> 00:25:31,875 It was so busy, it was almost like unenjoyable. 539 00:25:31,935 --> 00:25:35,845 It was like, so people, oh man, do you know what I have to vent a little bit. 540 00:25:36,115 --> 00:25:39,370 People taking pictures and videos on their phones all the time. 541 00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:41,760 And they're not even looking at the things on the wall, they're with you 542 00:25:41,980 --> 00:25:44,850 just behind the screen taking videos of it as long as there's proof that they 543 00:25:44,850 --> 00:25:47,250 were there, it doesn't matter if they were actually there and saw the stuff. 544 00:25:47,250 --> 00:25:49,476 So me and my partner were trying to read the plaques and stuff. 545 00:25:49,476 --> 00:25:52,146 There was a Banksy exhibition going on and there was loads of cool stuff 546 00:25:52,151 --> 00:25:55,356 in it, and it detailed exactly kind of like the story behind each piece. 547 00:25:55,446 --> 00:25:57,666 And it was just, yeah, we were stuck behind camera, other 548 00:25:57,666 --> 00:25:59,046 people's phone cameras basically. 549 00:25:59,046 --> 00:26:00,576 And it was, ah, it's so infuriating. 550 00:26:00,726 --> 00:26:01,596 Dara: Don't get me started. 551 00:26:02,526 --> 00:26:04,056 Daniel: All right well, I won't, I promise not to. 552 00:26:04,086 --> 00:26:06,606 But what is your wind down and what did you do to escape 553 00:26:06,606 --> 00:26:07,566 from the world of analytics? 554 00:26:07,716 --> 00:26:08,856 Dara: I'm going to do a TV one. 555 00:26:08,856 --> 00:26:12,786 I can't remember when I last gave a boring kind of, I've been watching this 556 00:26:12,846 --> 00:26:14,496 update, but I'm going to do one anyway. 557 00:26:14,776 --> 00:26:19,756 So the new series, the last series of succession is out and where I think 558 00:26:19,756 --> 00:26:23,326 five, maybe, maybe today I'm going to watch the latest one tonight. 559 00:26:23,386 --> 00:26:24,886 I think that's episode number five. 560 00:26:25,066 --> 00:26:29,046 And it's yeah, the last one so expecting big things to happen. 561 00:26:29,446 --> 00:26:31,996 It's already been pretty interesting, but I think it's going to just 562 00:26:32,396 --> 00:26:35,176 continue to, to ramp up and I don't know if you're watched or not, but 563 00:26:35,176 --> 00:26:36,706 they're all despicable characters. 564 00:26:36,711 --> 00:26:38,956 So when I say interesting things are happening, it's just lots of 565 00:26:39,316 --> 00:26:42,256 horrible people doing horrible things, but it's really entertaining. 566 00:26:42,661 --> 00:26:44,491 Daniel: No, I've not watched it, but it sounds fun and 567 00:26:44,491 --> 00:26:46,231 sounds almost like up my street. 568 00:26:46,281 --> 00:26:49,461 I'm a huge fan of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and that's very much, sounds 569 00:26:49,461 --> 00:26:52,911 very similar in terms of lots of not very nice people shouting at each other, doing 570 00:26:52,911 --> 00:26:56,751 awful things, but maybe in a different economic position than succession. 571 00:26:56,841 --> 00:26:59,601 Dara: Exactly, a different kind of context, but probably 572 00:26:59,631 --> 00:27:01,071 similar characters in a way. 573 00:27:01,071 --> 00:27:05,241 But it's meant to be based on, they reckon it's like based on the Murdoch family. 574 00:27:05,291 --> 00:27:08,141 And there's even stuff in the papers at the moment, but they think one of 575 00:27:08,141 --> 00:27:12,236 the Murdoch family might be feeding information to the show creators. 576 00:27:12,296 --> 00:27:14,426 But whether that's true or not, I don't know. 577 00:27:14,486 --> 00:27:15,926 It's really good, it's really entertaining. 578 00:27:16,251 --> 00:27:21,261 That's it for this week to hear more from me and Dan on GA4 and other analytics 579 00:27:21,261 --> 00:27:25,521 related topics, all our previous episodes are available in our archive 580 00:27:25,521 --> 00:27:30,381 at measurelab.co.uk/podcast, or you can simply use whatever app you're using 581 00:27:30,381 --> 00:27:34,491 right now to listen to this, to go back and listen to previous episodes. 582 00:27:34,731 --> 00:27:37,551 Daniel: And if you want to suggest a topic for something me and Dara should be 583 00:27:37,671 --> 00:27:41,541 talking about, or if you want to suggest a guest who we should be talking to, 584 00:27:41,591 --> 00:27:44,891 there's a Google form in the show notes that you can fill out and leave us a note. 585 00:27:45,311 --> 00:27:49,151 Or alternatively, you can just email us at podcast@measurelab.co.uk to 586 00:27:49,156 --> 00:27:50,801 get in touch with us both directly. 587 00:27:51,281 --> 00:27:53,201 Dara: Our theme is from Confidential. 588 00:27:53,411 --> 00:27:55,991 You can find a link to their music in the show notes. 589 00:27:56,531 --> 00:27:59,681 So on behalf of Dan and I, thanks for listening, see you next time.