#78 Sessionization is back baby!

Show Notes

Show notes and full transcript is available at https://bit.ly/427625x.

00:15 - Intro
 01:32 - Topic
 24:44 - Wind down
 27:16 - Outro

This week Dan and Dara chat about the slow but steady move in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) towards reintroducing older session-based metrics that were in Universal Analytics (UA). Is this an admission that they were wrong to not have them in GA4 to begin with? Why would they introduce them now? They discuss all of this and more - like how it (of course) ties into Google Ads and GA360!

The post #78 Sessionization is back baby! appeared first on Measurelab.

What is The Measure Pod?

The Measure Pod is your go-to fortnightly podcast hosted by seasoned analytics pros. Join Dara Fitzgerald (Co-Founder at Measurelab) & Matthew Hooson (Head of Engineering at Measurelab) as they dive into the world of data, analytics and measurement—with a side of fun.

Dara: On today's episode, Dan
and I dig up a favourite topic

of ours, which is sessions.

So we talk about how GA4 has released
a few updates that have actually

taken things a little bit backwards
towards how Universal used to be.

We talk about whether that's a
good thing or a bad thing and

what it might mean for the future.

Daniel: And speaking of the future,
let us know how we're doing.

Check out the show notes for a Google
form, which gives us a bit of feedback

around the podcast, me and Dara, you can
be completely anonymous, be nice though.

But just give us a bit of feedback on
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and people you'd like us to speak to.

And of course give us a rating and
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base my value to society on the number
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you do there will directly impact
my professional employment status.

Dara: Enjoy the episode.

Daniel: Enjoy.

Dara: Hello, and welcome back to
The Measure Pod, a podcast for

analytics and data enthusiasts.

I'm Dara, I'm CEO at Measurelab.

Daniel: And I'm Dan, I'm also here.

Dara: A very minimalist introduction
today, Dan, you want to get

straight down to business, do you?

Daniel: Well, I thought these kind of
episodes where it's just me and you and we

don't have a guest, people are only going
to listen if they're already familiar with

us or the podcast, at least in some way.

So, it's me and you again together,
alone, talking about analytics and

things that, the best way to put
it is grind our gears, I suppose.

Dara: Yes, exactly.

We're digging up an old favourite today.

So there was a recent bit of news,
I think about a week ago at the time

of recording this, that GA4 are going
to now have two counting methods for

conversion events, you're going to have
once per event and once per session

to use a favourite word of mine.

So this actually takes us back pretty
much to episode two, believe it or

not, where we had our famous debate
about the wonderful session metric.

Daniel: Famous, sure.

I don't know if anyone ever, you
know, we had only listeners back then.

Well, or if we do today.

Yeah, but no, it is a good conversation
because back then GA4 was new.

It might have even been,
you know, app plus web.

And it was coming at this with a
very old school Firebase analytics

mentality, which is there is no sessions,
you have to do the sessionization

yourself, learn to live with that.

And everything was event
based or user based.

And then we had this a great idea
to have this kind of debate where

you were on the side of the fence
where the session's not dead.

And I'm like, well, let's just move
to users and events, let's just move

with the times, but, and we're not
here talking about accounting method

of conversions in GA4, that's not
the basis of this whole conversation.

But it led into an interesting
conversation earlier today when we

were thinking about this episode and,
and actually it's this slow but steady

kind of like going back on itself
that Google Analytics 4 is doing.

And so it came out the gate really
strong saying, no, we've evolved,

we are going to use users and
events and sessions or a thing in

the past, stop using sessions, but.

Slowly but surely, and this is just
the most recent nail in the coffin,

Google Analytics 4 is going back and
reintroducing all of the things, the

sessionization or the session-based
things we had in GA3 that it said

that we didn't need anymore, but
has been slowly reintroducing them.

So obviously we're talking about
a way of counting conversions

by sessions or by events.

So in a sense, recreating goals, right?

Goals were a session level.

We've now got a way to
recreate goals in GA4.

But some of the other ones that
they've you know, not so recently

done, but still since it came out of
beta, they introduced average session

duration which was a metric that
never existed because it's all about

engagement time, not session duration.

It's also implemented session
level conversion rates and

even views per session.

And one would even say things like
bounce rate, introducing bounce

rate was a reaction to this where.

They're slowly but surely adding in
these session metrics because of the,

I suppose, well, I can only assume
negative reaction of the people that

are coming from Universal Analytics
saying, where are my numbers that

you told me were so important in one
platform that don't exist in this one?

Dara: Well, this is what I'm really
curious to know about because we

don't know what we don't know,
but I'm not hearing about a lot

of kickback on some of these.

Obviously there's been a lot
of, what should we call it?

Like there's been, there's been some
disgruntled chat about GA4 and it's,

you know, especially maybe go back
six months where there was still kind

of a lot of issues with it, or maybe
like people were complaining about

it, not kind of having feature parity.

I don't know that I'm aware personally
of too many people griping about how it

doesn't match the kind of sessionization
used by Universal Analytics.

I certainly haven't heard anybody say,
oh, I'm really annoyed that I can't get

a, you know, an equivalent of a goal
where I get conversions once per session.

So I'd be really curious to know
whether that is actually happening

and Google are feeling the heat
and we're just not aware of it.

Or whether there's some
other motivation for it.

Because you're right when GA4 came
out, it was this perfect opportunity

for them to just kind of take a hard
stance and say, do you know what?

You might not like it, but you've
got no choice, it's a new platform,

you need to adapt, and that's it.

But they seem to be just gradually,
gradually stepping back and back and

back and reintroducing things that
just make it that little bit more

like Universal Analytics, or maybe
not more like it, but just provide

that little bit of a safety blanket
for people who maybe are still kind of

thinking, where are my metrics gone?

Daniel: Yeah, and I'm all one for
these features by the way, I'm

not anti these sessionize metrics.

I think for me it's like, and
I'm all one for having choice,

you know, put the metrics in and
they're not there by default.

You have to edit the reports and add
them in, in most cases, or, or create

an explore exploration to see these.

But I think for me it's like
a, it is almost feels like an

admission of being wrong rather
than a kind of look cool new stuff.

It's almost like fine, okay, you
know, big sigh as they're kind

of like doing it disgruntledly.

So I think this is the
feeling I have around it.

It is not a positive, here's
new stuff to play with.

It's a kind of fine you win, whatever,
and you're quite right in terms of,

you know, to the layman, you know,
no one gives a shit to be fair.

Like this isn't, you know, going
to break anything or kind of

change anyone's lives dramatically.

I think there's fewer people with louder
voices and it's very like clickbait,

you know, popular opinions to have to
hate something when things come out.

So we've seen that a lot with GA4 over
the last couple of years and it's kind

of, it's almost the cool thing to hate it.

And it's the cool thing to be like, you
know, it doesn't have bounce rate and

it always had, you just got engagement
rate and you got the inverse right?

And that's bounce rate.

And it doesn't have bounce rate because
it's not there when you log in or

things like it doesn't have this report.

But it gives you a feature to
create any report you want and

create your own navigational menu.

I always think of it to the kind
of Dunning Kruger effect you know,

little knowledge is dangerous
because you feel like you know lots.

And a lot of people come out of
the gate being like, I can't use

it, it doesn't have this report
and it doesn't have this metric.

And I was like, well, in a sense it does
have this report and does have this metric

you just have to go into it a bit further
or have to know what you're looking at

or edit it or customise it in some way.

And yes, putting it behind a
layer of a couple of clicks

before it was after one click.

It was the first thing
you saw that is different.

But then maybe that's not a bad thing.

Maybe it's going to stop making people
think that bounce rate is a KPI and

average session durations is a KPI
and all of the numbers that Google put

in front of you when you logged into
Universal Analytics, people inherited

as KPIs because they didn't know
better and that's not their fault, it's

just that Google provided, you know,
someone somewhere in the product team

of Google many years ago decided to put
these numbers, surface these numbers

on a dashboard, on some page of GA.

You know, I wonder if they knew then the
level of impact it would have and make,

you know, every marketer use bounce rate
in their dashboards going forward, just

because someone made a choice back then.

But I liked the fact that they've
kind of gone back a little

bit and rethought about that.

Like you said, like a, it's a fresh start,
but I think there's a lot of people that,

like I said, don't know enough about
the opportunities and the cool stuff

you can do, and the fact that they exist
anyway, but they're kind of shouting and

they're the people on LinkedIn saying,
GA4s crap because insert your thing here.

And maybe they're just trying to
address some of these things, which,

you know, realistically probably don't
take that much effort from Google

to add in the inverse of engagement
rate and call it bounce rate.

Sure, that's probably not a lot of dev
work, but you know, a lot of this stuff

could have been spent developing features
we truly need, rather than accounting for

metrics that already exist in some form
or we can calculate them in some way.

Rant over, sorry I'll let you go.

Dara: And aren't particularly
useful in the first place yeah.

Daniel: Well, yeah, I mean
there is that, I mean, okay

sorry, just a tangent on that.

Bounce rate is more useful now in
GA4 because it's defined differently.

So bounce rate, I have a soft spot
for bounce rate or engagement rate.

I always say that universal analytics was
the glass half empty and it had the bounce

rate in GA4 defaults to the engagement
rate, which is the glass half full.

So I like to be the more optimistic
side, but now that they've redefined

it, accounting for you know,
engagement time and conversion events.

I quite like the definition
more so than Universal, I think

it can be really relevant.

The thing is it's not the same, this
is a lovely Googlism where they've

introduced something called exactly the
same thing, but define it differently.

But I do have a software for
now, I do think it's useful.

Dara: It is more useful at least, I
guess the same issue applies, which

is that it can be just misinterpreted.

I think if you know what you're doing
with it and you drill down and you

use it in a meaningful way, I think
the problem has always been, it's

just seen as being a, you know, low
engagement is bad, high bounce rate is

bad and it's not always that clear cut.

But something that just came to me on
this recent change to introduce the

kind of two counting methods for events.

I wonder, could it relate to Google Ads?

Is that where maybe the
kickback has come from?

If you're importing goals from Universal
Analytics, maybe they need this to enable

you to match what you've been doing.

I didn't think of this until now,
but maybe they need it to be able

to match what you're doing in
Google Ads with Universal Analytics.

Daniel: I can imagine if it's a
feature that GA4 is releasing now, it

is in some way related to Google Ads.

Everything is, they may as well
just call it Google Ads Analytics.

You know, they may as well
just rebrand it, you know?

I think that there's going to be a lot of
stuff, which is going to be about moving

people over come the 1st of July from an
ads perspective over to GA4 is seamless

and is automated and as exactly the same
as possible as it once was before they

can start capitalising on the new stuff.

I'm going to find it very interesting
when they do all this because we spoke

on the last couple of episodes, but if
you're a marketer or in the analytics

space, you might already know, but
Google are removing access to a bunch

of the attribution models this coming
May, and then again in September,

and they're moving all of the GA4
conversion exports to Google ads.

They're moving that over to a data-driven
attribution export and they're doing,

you know, full credit export rather than
this weird kind of last click stuff,

and then do the modeling over there.

So in a sense, they're aligning
the two tools, and I think

this is another one of those.

So it's aligning, again this
idea of measuring a click,

measuring a session, right?

And for e-comm, you probably want to
count every purchase because if they make

two purchases in the session, why not?

Why not?

There might be two genuine things, but
for a lot of, you know, B2B brands or

maybe some of these softer conversion
points, maybe engaging with a piece

of content that might happen multiple
times in a session and you don't

want to overcount, you don't want to
over reward the success of a click.

You don't want a conversion rate
basically of over a hundred percent,

which is a possibility that way round.

And so maybe this just forces it to
be a bit more, you know, sensible to

the untrained eye I suppose, maybe.

Dara: Yeah and, and I like that.

I always liked that in Universal,
where you could have something

as a goal and an event.

So if it was something like viewing
content or downloading a file or

watching a video or something like
that, that could happen multiple times.

You might want to just have that yes or
no flag to say, did this session contain

that particular thing one or more times.

But then if it is something like that
where it's lots of different videos

across the site, you can use the events
to go in and see the total count.

So having the ability to do both,
I always found quite useful.

So I do like this update, it's this
broader point about are they, you know,

is this the end of it now or are, is
it going to continue to introduce more

aspects that might kind of, that could
be seen as being kind of backtracking

a little bit and pulling things back
a little bit more in line with the way

it used to be as opposed to this idea
that it's a totally new data model and

everybody should be excited about that
because it's going to be better in every

way and it's all events and user based.

Because I remember even when we,
just for a bit of extra context for

our listeners as well, when we were
first talking about GA4, we were kind

of jokingly arguing about whether a
session even existed or not, and it was

a little bit complicated and there was
very little within the interface that

would suggest that there were sessions,
whereas now it definitely is looking

like it's back there, it's fully front
and center within the interface again.

Daniel: And the schema, right?

I mean, even back when we were
using Firebase analytics, which is

GA4, but when it was app only, and
they didn't even have the metric of

sessions in there, we had to process
them and calculate them in BigQuery.

We had to process and
calculate sessions, right?

And so we've gone from a
point where they really didn't

want to have sessions at all.

They didn't even give you a metric
of sessions to now where they have

created it in the kind of data model.

The schema kind of, in a sense,
contains sessions to be able to

sessionize data so that we can
work out these type of metrics.

So we've gone full circle really, from a
kind of, we don't need these, we're not

even going to consider them to, okay,
we'll include it in our data model.

You know, I think it's a full 180,
right, coming back on themselves.

Maybe it's just a reaction
to web measurement.

Maybe in a app environment it's
less relevant I don't know.

I can probably argue that both ways.

But the thing with this whole concept
is, as you said, Dara, is like, is it

done or is there going to be more here?

Are they going to go full steam
ahead and kind of reintroduce

everything we had before?

To be fair, I don't know what
else there is I don't know.

Do you have a wishlist?

Do you have a bucket list of stuff
that you'd like to see in this kind

of, in this kind of area in GA4?

Dara: No, off the top of my head, no.

I mean, the only thing I guess that,
this isn't really a wishlist as such,

but I still find, and I know some other
people do find it a little bit more

confusing now in terms of attribution,
because you've got your, you know,

you've got your first user, you've got
your session, and then you've got your

event and it's all a little confusing.

They could maybe do with kind
of pulling that together a

little bit and clarifying it.

But in terms of like a wish list
of what else is missing, there's

nothing that comes to mind.

Daniel: Maybe that's it.

If you're listening,
Google, we're all good.

There's nothing, there's nothing left.

Dara: Well, nothing that comes
to mind, but that doesn't

mean there isn't anything.

Daniel: Well, if I remember rightly,
Dara, I think you won the argument about

whether it's a user versus session.

So you are speaking for everyone
that loves sessions here.

Dara: Did I just decide that I won?

Daniel: Yeah, I think you might have done.

I think hindsight has proved you did,
I think this episode is confirmation.

Dara: Well, that's true
actually yeah, yeah.

But there must have been something I
guess this is a, a question for you,

but with the, with apps, you're right.

Like when it was Firebase, the idea
of a session was slightly more alien.

But it's still useful to know, even
with apps, like whether you call it a

session or give it a different name,
it's like a collection of events

within a confined period of time.

I think I maybe made this argument when we
had the debate, I do see value in having

a you know, a collection of events that
either happen within a period of time or

are tied to a single marketing source.

So some way of saying this was an app.

Because it, whether you're using an app
or whether you're present the internet

on your tv, or whether you're on your
laptop or whatever, they are separate.

You know, you go there for a purpose
and it is either time boxed or

it is tied to a specific purpose.

So I like the idea of having the session.

I feel like I'm just rehashing
the arguments that we made all

those months and months ago.

Daniel: But I think they're
still relevant right.

And I'm going to come back to you
with the answer I had back then, which

was the idea of a session day, right?

And a session day is this, I
feel a happy medium and it's

something that you can calculate.

I think I even wrote a blog about
it, calculate in Looker Studio, if

this was a thing that's now rest in
peace, Stadia, introduced and how they

rewarded their publishers and their
kind of game developers based on a

current, a financial revenue share.

But anyway, it doesn't matter how
it came about, but the idea is

that how many days has this user
visited your site over this period?

So if I visited once in a day or a
hundred times in a day, it doesn't

matter, there's one session day.

So I've had one day of sessions and
so I think this kind of arbitrary,

like 30 minute window of inactivity,
which you can tweak up or down.

I think that maybe is the thing for me
that's a bit arbitrary and a bit maybe

old school in the thinking behind it.

But if they just said, you know,
over the last couple of days

you had 10,000 session days.

You had 10,000 times someone
visited your site within a day.

You know, I think that's great and then
you can go down further and you can find

the users that did a bunch of stuff on
the website within a day, and you can see

the users that did a single visit or page
view within that day, but they're still

kind of collectively counted as one thing.

The way I worked it out, by the
way, if you are interested and I'll

link off in the show notes, is just
export users by day, unique users by

day, and then just sum them, right.

And the thing you're told never to do
with users but some of them by day because

you're getting a unique count of users
by day and then just sum that total.

And I think that gives you
this metric of session days.

And like I say, it's that middle
point between sessions and

users that can be quite useful.

Especially with things like changing
technologies like safari and seven day

cookie lifetimes and stuff like that.

It doesn't really matter about
the user as long as that cookie

lasts the day, you're all good.

Dara: Maybe I've softened since episode
two, but I won't argue with you, but

as long as there's a way, I guess we're
agreeing on that there needs to be a

way of looking that's more, I don't know
if it's right to say more granular or

not, but there needs to be something
between a user and an event and whether

that's sessions or session days, I think
it's useful to have that, you know,

bucket, whatever way it's calculated.

But there's got to be something
between events and users otherwise it

feels like there's something lacking.

That's the common ground,
we can agree on that.

Daniel: So what's next from Google?

What do you think's coming next?

They've started doing this, they've
been drip feeding these small changes

and tweaks and updates back into this.

Do you see this going somewhere
or do you feel this is a, almost

like a vanity update and maybe this
will kind of fizzle out eventually.

Do you think there's anything
more behind this than maybe what

we're kind of clocking onto?

Dara: Whether it's just in my head now,
and not just from us talking about it

a couple of minutes ago, or from you
mentioning it on previous episodes, but

this idea about them gradually pulling
ads in GA4, well, not even just Google

Ads, but the whole kind of GMP ecosystem.

GA4 is very much being kind of like
pulled into the middle, even more

so than maybe it ever was before.

You know, if I had to kind of put a bet
on, on where it's, it's going, I think

probably in the background, they're
trying to do as much work as they can

to make sure that the backend of ads
and, you know, all the stuff we talked

about previously with Alexis where we
were talking about SA 360 and DV 360.

I think that there's probably a lot
of stuff going on behind the scenes

to make sure all of the, the kind
of backend of all of those platforms

is playing as nicely as possible.

And maybe some of this stuff that
we're seeing is just the kind of the

visible kind of front end changes.

I'm basically piggybacking off
something that you've been saying

for a while, but you know, that I
mean, that makes sense, doesn't it?

And even with the data collection, I
think, you know, it's definitely heading

in that direction where, you use GA4,
that collects the data and then that

feeds into all the other GMP platforms.

Daniel: Yeah, for sure.

I'm just wondering then if there's more
to come with the sessionization because

a lot of these tools are based on clicks.

So maybe there is more of a focus to
measure the success of a session for

Google Ads, DV 360, SA 360, of course.

And you know, there's very
little else It does, right?

In those marketing platforms, it's
all about measuring the click and or

impression and click, and then conversion.

You know, I don't know
if there's, who knows?

Oh, I think we're going around in circles,
but I think we, there's more stuff we feel

is bubbling like a, like a swan, you know?

It's all kind of like drip feeding on top,
but it's going crazy underneath that we

maybe don't see, you know, so maybe there,
there's more coming, you know, with all

the kind of changes that's coming anyway,
that Googles was announced with Google

Ads, there's probably more they're letting
on even from what they've announced, and

maybe they'll just be more of the same,
you know, going in that same direction.

Dara: I mean, one other thing, this is
kind of combining, you're asking about

the wishlist and also your question
just now about where it's all heading.

Wouldn't it be great?

Maybe you'll disagree.

Maybe your tune has changed over the
time we're working with GA4, but maybe

it would be great if they reintroduce
views, which I feel like would work for

like the big ads customers as well because
it's not so much fun linking up ads to

GA now when you've got lots of, if you're
a big international business with lots

of different sites and sub properties
and sub-domains and all the rest of it.

So maybe that would be an interesting
announcement if they did reintroduce

views, but I don't know, I'm
probably not seeing it happening.

Daniel: That is admitting
royal defeat, isn't it?

I think if they introduce that.

Dara: Just call it
Universal Analytics then.

Daniel: Yeah, Jesus.

I don't know.

I mean, there's two ways, like a
lot of what you have to kind of look

at this through is that Google's a
massive company in it for profit and

they're an advertising company, right?

And so, for me there's always
that kind of like, well how

would they make money from that?

But I think, you know, monetising it
through the GCP for one, so like the

fact that every property can connect
to BigQuery, so the more views you give

someone, the more BigQuery exports they'll
be able to give you for free right.

Quote unquote, free, doing air
quotes for an audio medium.

But the other side of that, I think again,
is the processing it must take, this is

where I think that they may have maybe
made that bed within Universal Analytics.

Universal analytics went fucking crazy.

Everyone implemented it and all of
a sudden they realised for every one

website we track, we are processing
this data 10 times on average, maybe.

And I'm wondering if they're
like, we are not doing that again.

And so they're just, they have to
from a kind of basically a cost

perspective, not offer it out.

And so putting it behind the paywall,
and I just riffing on this, we've said

this before, but I'll say it again.

I really hope they introduce a
kind of pay as you go model of

GA 360, like they do on Firebase.

On Firebase, you can go in there
and you can do pay as you use,

pay as you pay to play in a sense.

You don't have to go all in at
like thousands of pounds a month

to get access to everything.

I just need access to sub properties
or views, or I just need access

to more API tokens, right?

So that I can get around those crappy
fucking limitations and the quotas.

So like, why not just enable someone
to link a credit card like in the

GCP, you know, and you pay for
volume of usage and each tool has a

different sort of charging method.

Why not do that?

And then all of a sudden just have
a screen in the admin in GA4 saying,

put credit card and then give me an
extra 50 tokens a month and give me

an extra whatever a month and open
up sub properties and maybe that's

based on volume of events, right?

I just feels like such a
no-brainer for them to do.

At the moment, it's going 360 for the
example you gave a multinational company,

a big multinational company, lots of ads,
accounts like, yes, of course they're

right for going to 360 if they're not
already, and I'm sorry if that's you.

But yeah, you should start
paying for GA because that's

the where they want you to be.

But for everyone else, it's just,
so far we've been okay right.

I don't want to jinx it, but with a
very few exceptions most of our clients

have adapted to not having views fine.

And it's one of those things,
now it's gone, you kind of forget

about it very quickly and then you
move on with your lives, right.

Dara: It's really that one use case I
think of, you know, it's connecting up

multiple ads accounts cross, you know,
a number of different, that old mapping.

And it was never a fun thing to
do, but you know, at least you

could kind of do it with Universal.

On the pricing model that wouldn't be
a crazy bet to make that all of that

is there on the cloud side of things,
it's possibly just a matter of time,

maybe it seems from the outside for us
to say, oh, why don't they just switch

over to that kind of pricing model.

Maybe there's an ambition for them
to do it, but it might just take a

little bit of time, but I don't know
why they would have this separate,

standalone way of charging when that's
working so well for them on the GCP.

Daniel: Well, I can almost answer my own
question or that question, and I think,

you know, and this is just me completely
guessing, but the only way to buy GA 360

right now is going through an advertising
agency, a big advertising agency,

which are sales partners of Google.

And in a sense, if they introduce
this Pay as You Go model in GA to

go 360 or whatever they call it.

They're just completely undermining and
kind of bypassing all of their partners.

And so every single sales partner they've
got out there across the world that are,

you know, in bed with Google selling
all these licenses, making a cut off

the top, maybe their business is built
around selling 360 licenses, they're

basically going to, you know, mess
that up overnight if they release this.

Maybe everyone at Google wants to go
to this pay as you go model, right?

It'll be easier for them, but I think
there's a lot of politics maybe, is

probably the biggest blocker here.

And maybe it is happening, but
slowly but surely, maybe it's already

happening and we don't know about
it because we are not an advertising

agency we have no idea, right?

Maybe there's something bubbling, but I
think we are going to be one of the last

to know alongside, you know, the kind of
average Joe, you know, the public because

we are not an advertising agency, but
I can imagine if Google are going this

way, which it makes sense for them to do?

And I wouldn't be surprised if they are.

I think there's a lot of groundwork
to do to kind of mitigate this

kind of fallout with the agencies.

Dara: All good theories, but let's hope
it does end up there one day because I

think that idea of scalable analytics,
just like you've got kind of scalable

cloud, I think it would make it even
more accessible for a lot of, because

that's what Google Analytics has been
all about all along, it's like making it

the most accessible analytics platform.

I think this would take that to its
natural conclusion, if you could scale

up and down depending on what you need.

Daniel: Well, bringing it back
into sessionization, Dara, GA4

is heading back to session level
stuff, I'm sure you are happy.

All of this stuff that we'll
be, we've talked about is

going to be in the show notes.

We'll put links to the announcements and
some of the metrics that are available,

but the one thing that Google's not done
is they've not put them in the reports by

default, you have to go and add these in.

So there is one thing that I'm
going to claim a mini victory on

that sessions haven't won just yet.

They're available, but
they're not by default.

So I'm going to take
that as a mini victory.

Dara: They will be by
default for any automatically

migrated goals from Universal.

Daniel: Yes.

Sorry, specifically with
the conversions yes.

Because they're going to do
them, of course they're going

to do them like for like.

I think I'm still slightly
bitter about having, you know,

average session duration.

Dara: Okay, so what our listeners
are obviously dying to hear at this

point, Dan, is what you've been
doing outside of work to chill out?

Daniel: Well, I've actually just
come back from a little weekend away.

Me and my partner, we went to Amsterdam
for the weekend and I've never been.

So, we went over there for a, like
a Thursday night to a Sunday last

weekend and yeah, it was awesome.

I really enjoyed it, it's a really
beautiful place and the people were

awesome and yeah, we did lots of walking.

We didn't get a single tram, tube,
bus or anything, and we just walked

everywhere and maybe naively.

It's pretty big walking
around, it took forever.

Yeah, we definitely got our steps
in for those couple of days.

Lots of good coffee and
lots of good food really.

We went into a couple of museums.

We went into a, a couple of galleries,
actually more so than museums, but I

wish a really nice but bloody busy man.

It was so busy, it was
almost like unenjoyable.

It was like, so people, oh man, do you
know what I have to vent a little bit.

People taking pictures and videos
on their phones all the time.

And they're not even looking at the
things on the wall, they're with you

just behind the screen taking videos of
it as long as there's proof that they

were there, it doesn't matter if they
were actually there and saw the stuff.

So me and my partner were trying
to read the plaques and stuff.

There was a Banksy exhibition going
on and there was loads of cool stuff

in it, and it detailed exactly kind
of like the story behind each piece.

And it was just, yeah, we were
stuck behind camera, other

people's phone cameras basically.

And it was, ah, it's so infuriating.

Dara: Don't get me started.

Daniel: All right well, I
won't, I promise not to.

But what is your wind down
and what did you do to escape

from the world of analytics?

Dara: I'm going to do a TV one.

I can't remember when I last gave a
boring kind of, I've been watching this

update, but I'm going to do one anyway.

So the new series, the last series of
succession is out and where I think

five, maybe, maybe today I'm going
to watch the latest one tonight.

I think that's episode number five.

And it's yeah, the last one so
expecting big things to happen.

It's already been pretty interesting,
but I think it's going to just

continue to, to ramp up and I don't
know if you're watched or not, but

they're all despicable characters.

So when I say interesting things
are happening, it's just lots of

horrible people doing horrible
things, but it's really entertaining.

Daniel: No, I've not watched
it, but it sounds fun and

sounds almost like up my street.

I'm a huge fan of It's Always Sunny in
Philadelphia and that's very much, sounds

very similar in terms of lots of not very
nice people shouting at each other, doing

awful things, but maybe in a different
economic position than succession.

Dara: Exactly, a different
kind of context, but probably

similar characters in a way.

But it's meant to be based on, they reckon
it's like based on the Murdoch family.

And there's even stuff in the papers
at the moment, but they think one of

the Murdoch family might be feeding
information to the show creators.

But whether that's true
or not, I don't know.

It's really good, it's
really entertaining.

That's it for this week to hear more from
me and Dan on GA4 and other analytics

related topics, all our previous
episodes are available in our archive

at measurelab.co.uk/podcast, or you can
simply use whatever app you're using

right now to listen to this, to go
back and listen to previous episodes.

Daniel: And if you want to suggest a
topic for something me and Dara should be

talking about, or if you want to suggest
a guest who we should be talking to,

there's a Google form in the show notes
that you can fill out and leave us a note.

Or alternatively, you can just email
us at [e-mail] to

get in touch with us both directly.

Dara: Our theme is from Confidential.

You can find a link to their
music in the show notes.

So on behalf of Dan and I, thanks
for listening, see you next time.