Another Tuesday, Another Identifier Panic

More from Standard Deviation Podcast All episodes →

1. 

   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.…

2. 

   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…

3. 

   S5 · E2 · 8 Mar 2026 · 53 min

   Raw data doesn't spark joy

   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,…

4. 

   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.

5. 

   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…

6. 

   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…

7. 

   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.

8. 

   S4 · E3 · 12 Apr 2025 · 55 min

   Building Better Relationships

   In this episode of Standard Deviation, Juliana and Simo finally sit down with Dave Cain, Head of Digital Marketing at Euro Car Parts, after months of scheduling chaos and flu-induced delays. What starts with parental war stories and Gen Alpha slang quickly shifts into the deep end: Google’s communication failures, the agency/in-house tension, AI’s limitations in emotional resonance, and the underrated power of musical precision. This is the first time the pod features an in-house leader, and Dave delivers — mixing empathy, strategic rigor, and no-BS takes on vendor relationships and team…

9. 

   S4 · E2 · 7 Mar 2025 · 1 hr 6 min

   33 days of Javascript

   We’re back with Season 4, Episode 2, kicking things off with AI agents, code, and whether Simo should build a SIMO-bot to replace himself. Then, we switch gears for a real convo with Nicola Strand about imposter syndrom and why she doesn’t call it that anymore. We dig into self-doubt, the pressure to “know everything,” and why learning more can actually make imposter syndrome worse. Nicola shares how she flipped imposter tendencies into an advantage and how she once spent 33 days learning JavaScript before deciding, yeah, this isn’t for me. If you’ve ever second-guessed yourself (so, all of…

10. 

    S4 · E1 · 2 Feb 2025 · 25 min

    Stop The Pigeon

    We're back! Season 4 of Standard Deviation Podcast kicks off with an unhinged, completely off-the-rails episode where Simo and Juliana attempt to say hello but end up deep in Romanian childhood chaos, bartering pigeons, and the questionable economics of happy hour poker. Somewhere in between, Simo reveals he's getting a puppy (which gets completely overshadowed by Juliana’s dad's animal trade escapades). We promise, the season will have more structure—real guests, real discussions on data, AI, and analytics—but for now, let’s just embrace the madness. Welcome back.