Episode notes
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,…
Podcast
Standard Deviation Podcast
Juliana Jackson, Simo Ahava · Learning · English
Standard Deviation Podcast is your go-to resource for navigating a career in digital analytics or technical marketing.
More from Standard Deviation Podcast All episodes →
-
S5 · E5 · 31 May 2026 · 54 min
Simplification or lawsuits?
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…
-
S5 · E4 · 29 Apr 2026 · 55 min
New Customer, Who Dis?
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.…
-
S5 · E3 · 26 Mar 2026 · 39 min
80% is the new 100%
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…
-
S5 · E1 · 29 Jan 2026 · 46 min
2026 - we are back and it aint sayf
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.
-
S4 · E7 · 10 Dec 2025 · 44 min
Protect your critical thinking - Live at Analytics Summit
Welcome back. Today we are looking at two massive shifts in the tech landscape that might be doing more harm than good... and we are doing it live from Analytics Summit, Hamburg! Are LLMs actually making us smarter, or are they just 'glazing' us? We’re arguing that relying on AI for everything is eroding the foundational knowledge of SQL, Python, and even basic math that you actually need to survive in this industry. How to protect your critical thinking before it evaporates? Then, we have to talk about Google. After years of delays that felt like Groundhog Day, their decision to drop most…
-
S4 · E6 · 27 Sep 2025 · 44 min
Another Tuesday, Another Identifier Panic
Well, you asked for it. After a brief, life-induced hiatus (it’s your fault for wanting Simo’s course so badly), we’re back. And we’re a little bit sick and a lot cynical. 🤷 Juliana kicks things off with a life update: she’s switched allegiances, joined Jellyfish, and has been thrown head-first into the deep end of Server-Side GTM, Pantheon, and Google's cloud ecosystem. This sends us down a rabbit hole of Google Tag Gateway, the future of one-click vendor integrations (terrifying), and why Juliana finally has to take Simo’s course. Speaking of courses, Simo spills the beans on the brand new…
-
S4 · E5 · 7 Aug 2025 · 1 hr 7 min
Definitely...not a lot of numbers!
We’re back from summer break with a suitcase full of rants: from Google’s AI Overviews and the absurd death-of-SEO/CRO discourse to the Shopify + ChatGPT overreactions and the ongoing collapse of attention spans. We call out the engagement-bait apocalypse on LinkedIn, the myth of LLM “reasoning,” and why boring truths never make headlines. Then we shift gears to Apple’s vague Safari privacy update and how a single line in a press release sent everyone into chaos. Plus, special guest Tim Ceuppens, joins us to unpack data storytelling, analyst-stakeholder dysfunction, and what Pixar can teach…
-
S4 · E4 · 29 May 2025 · 1 hr
Attribution, MMM, MTA and all the other Ms
In the latest episode of Standard Deviation Podcast, we are joined by attribution expert, Barbara Galiza, for a deep dive into measurement done right. We discuss how to navigate server-side tagging, the best use cases for MTA versus MMM, and why incrementality testing often cuts through the noise better than flashy dashboards or AI-driven hype. In the intro, we will also chat about Google's surprise changes to Analytics cookies and explore the ups and downs of managing product releases, especially when plugins update faster than users can keep up.
Take it with you
The Melo app keeps playing with the screen off, works in the car and on your watch, wakes you to your station, and browses the whole catalogue offline. Free, no ads, no account.
