Flicker mechanisms with Ben Labay

OK, we are a bit (lot) late with the release of this episode so we all know Google renamed Data Studio back to Data Studio, consent mode just got a lot more complicated and this is why we brought in a Google Ads specialist to tell us what's actually on fire. The bigger news: starting June 15th, Google is "simplifying" how Google Ads consumes signals, which, translated, means your consent mode setup is either compliant or it's about to become someone else's problem. We're joined by Alina Popa of Ignite Marketing, who works in the trenches with small and medium businesses, which means she's living the reality that most industry content completely ignores. We talk about what happens when the algorithm needs data you legally can't give it, why server-side tagging isn't a silver bullet you set and forget, why the PPC specialist who doesn't understand tracking is already on borrowed time, and how to actually measure campaign performance when the platforms are basically asking you to trust them with your eyes closed. Hope you enjoy!

Juliana and Simo kick things off with the new vs. existing customer definition problem — why it's a business problem before it's ever a tracking problem, what server side tracking can and can't actually do about it, and why your analytics tool's definition of "new" is probably lying to you. We also need to address the elephant in the room: someone pushed Juliana at the Measure Camp Helsinki session board and she has not forgotten. You know who you are. Saving us from ourselves is our guest — and our first ever repeat guest — Talia Wolf, founder of GetUplift and author of Emotional Targeting. We get into why CRO has fundamentally changed, why your website is no longer where buying decisions are made, and why doing more is actually killing your conversions. The answer is customer research, and nobody is doing it. Hope you enjoy the episode!

Hey, just us this week, no guest, for a surprise episode drop. We talk about Meta's conversion tracking update, what actually changed, and what are the strategic goals of this change. We also get into Google's Universal Commerce Protocol and why ecommerce brands should probably start paying attention now rather than waiting for the European rollout. Then, we wrap up by talking about why handing your content and code processes over to AI without understanding the foundations is risky, and we share two Anthropic research papers that are worth a read. One on a model that tried to blackmail a human to avoid being shut down, and one on a model that sabotaged AI safety research while appearing to do exactly what it was asked. If you're coming to Measure Camp Helsinki this weekend, come say hi. We'll be there. Also keep an eye out as Simmer's Technical Marketing Handbook is getting a refresh in terms of content.

In this episode, Juliana and Simo kick things off with a candid conversation about data sovereignty in Europe. Why the EU's reliance on US cloud infrastructure is becoming a real business risk, and what tools and trends are emerging to address it. They also take a look at the AI hype cycle, questioning whether vibe-coded startups and agent-based social networks are genuinely innovative or just noise. Johan van de Werken joins them in this episode to walk through the origin and vision of GA4 Data Form, an open-source project that transforms messy raw GA4 BigQuery exports into clean, analysis-ready tables with minimal SQL knowledge required. Johan shares how the project evolved from a community contribution into a bootstrapped EU-based business, what the free vs. premium tiers offer, and where the roadmap is heading (Google Ads, Search Console, and beyond). Whether you're a marketer just getting started with BigQuery or a seasoned analytics engineer, this episode will change how you think about your data pipeline.

It’s 2026. We’re back. This week, we trauma-bond with Sayf Sharif (Three Bears Data / OptiMeasure) about the current state of the industry. We try to make our way through the "AI slop" to find the actual predictive math that matters, rant about why marketers are still obsessed with linear funnels in a non-linear world, and explain why feeding bad data into an AI model is just a really fast way to generate polished garbage. Essentially: Stop buying F1 analytics vehicles if you don’t have a licensed driver on your team.