A few months ago, I wrote an article touting the benefits of using BigQuery custom SQL inside Data Studio—Google’s free visualization suite for analytics data—and explained how this method could be used to produce eCommerce funnel reports. Shortly after that article was published, a few of my teammates mentioned that they’d love to see how we could use Data Studio with customized GA4 data. I enjoy exploring interesting use cases for Data Studio and often find myself pushing the envelope as I look for ways to answer complex questions, so I was happy to start experimenting with the possibilities ..read more

All too often when a client is asked what they want to track, the answer is “everything.” Clients often don’t really know what they want or will need to achieve business goals, and the default response is to track everything that can possibly be tracked. However, the “track everything” mindset often leads to too much data, most of which is rarely looked at—let alone used. In addition, having too much data can easily lead to data clutter, making it hard to see what’s really important and keeping teams from delivering valuable insights to their organizations. The “track everything” mindset is a ..read more

As Google announced the sunsetting of Google Analytics Universal in March, many companies are now facing questions they haven’t had to face in many years. How fast can we get this new platform up and running? Do we stay with Google Analytics or move to a new platform such as Adobe Analytics? The number of questions only grows as they find out that GA4 isn’t a simple migration but a full new implementation, meaning no historical data and the changing of terminology, reporting interfaces, and more. Companies now have to wonder: How much will the switch cost? Will Google Analytics 4 (GA4) support ..read more

In October 2020, Google launched the next generation of Google Analytics, Google Analytics 4 (GA4). GA4 introduces many new features, including a heavy emphasis on events and a completely new integration with Google Optimize. With Google’s latest announcement that Universal Analytics 360 will no longer process data starting October 1, 2023, there is no better time than now to prepare for the switch. And as you transition, you’ll want to ensure that you integrate Google Optimize with GA4 properly, so you can take advantage of the detailed reporting that the native integration offers. The strai ..read more

Integrating GA4 and OptimizelyX Anyone working with Google Analytics will now be familiar with GA4, the next generation of Google Analytics, as Google recently announced the upcoming retirement of Universal Analytics. Designed around a streamlined hit-based data model, GA4 is a promising progression from Universal Analytics which relied on a now outdated session-based model. If you work with Google Analytics and have not yet got a parallel instance of GA4 up and running, we highly recommend you tackle this soon. GA4 does not contain historic Universal Analytics data so the sooner your GA4 setu ..read more

Recently, Google announced that they will finally sunset Universal Analytics in 2023. While for some this has been expected for a while, it may still come as a surprise for many, especially if you’ve been putting off the implementation of Google Analytics 4. Dates to Know The dates that you need to know are: July 1, 2023 – Free Universal Analytics properties will stop processing hits. October 1, 2023 – 360 Universal Analytics properties will stop processing hits. January 1, 2024 – Data in UA becomes unavailable for reporting purposes. Google Analytics 4 Enhancements and Features Google’s ne ..read more

We’ve written a lot on customer data platforms, or CDPs. But, like many marketers, you might still be wondering, “How would a CDP help me?” What’s a CDP? CDPs are central repositories of all the information you know about your customers. They allow you to combine customer data across all your touchpoints, to discover your customer stories, and ultimately to target your customers in highly directed ways. What Can a CDP Do For You? Get to Know Your Customers By aggregating all your data about your customers in a singular location, CDPs allow you to stitch your known customers together, providin ..read more

The frontline for gaining the competitive advantage lies with the experience that brands provide to their customers. Success on this front is primarily determined by an organization’s ability to meet their customers’ needs and expectations across their customer journey. Therefore, it’s no surprise that teams are prioritizing their customer journey optimization efforts. At Blast, we define customer journey optimization as the process in which engagement with your customers is optimized by accounting for their entire journey, leading to a seamless, relevant and impactful end-to-end customer expe ..read more

Love or hate this year’s Adobe Summit, there was certainly a ton of emphasis on “Experience 4.0” and where Adobe fit into that mix. Again, reverting to a virtual format this year, many sessions and keynotes talked about the burgeoning digital experience and where Adobe’s specific solutions can help with implementations. Anyone new or familiar with their applications would certainly tune in to see if there were any bombshell software news or updates. However, while I didn’t personally see any noteworthy rollouts, there were some nuggets I found personally interesting relating to my work with Ad ..read more

A significant change as Google Analytics 4 (GA4) rolls out is that both paid and standard GA4 properties can now be linked to Google BigQuery. Once linked, BigQuery has accurate event-level data and allows for more robust reporting beyond the GA4 user interface. Google Data Studio (Google’s free dashboard reporting tool) can connect directly to any BigQuery dataset. There are significant, valuable capabilities to be utilized. Where Do You Get Your Insights? In the world of digital analytics, we all know there are as many data reporting platforms as there are opinions. Many of them are designe ..read more