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Notes on analytics engineering, server-side tracking, tag management, and the data pipelines behind them.

Data Engineering

Catching a Silent AppsFlyer / Adjust SDK Death in BigQuery

When a mobile attribution SDK hits End-of-Support your app doesn't crash — it keeps running while data quality quietly erodes. Two BigQuery queries to catch it in your own data before the monthly report does.

·5 min read
Analytics

GA4 Now Requires a "Currency" Field When Importing Campaign Data: What the July 28 Update Actually Means

Campaign Data Import with cost data now requires an explicit currency. Small update, but it quietly fixes a real data-corruption problem — and it can stop an import cold if you edit a config and leave the field blank.

·6 min read
Paid Media

Google Ads' Quiet Revolution: Why Your tCPA/tROAS Campaigns Might Suddenly "Get Worse" on August 17

Google Ads is rolling out a Target CPA / Target ROAS bidding change on August 17, 2026. What is it, how will it affect your campaigns, and what should you do before the deadline? Full breakdown with the Bid Target Adjustment Tool.

·6 min read
Analytics

GA4 Source Group Dimension — Finally, Clean Social Attribution

GA4's new Source Group dimension collapses facebook, fb, m.facebook.com and friends into one clean row — retroactively, with zero implementation work. Here's what it does and where it still falls short.

·5 min read
Tag Management

Google Starts Using IP Addresses for Ad Measurement in Europe: How the August 3 Change Affects Your GA4 and GTM Setup

Google is expanding what it uses EEA, UK, and Swiss IP addresses for — from routing traffic to identifying devices and personalizing ads. A purpose change that lands squarely on your consent setup.

·5 min read
Server-Side Tracking

Server-Side GTM: Reclaiming First-Party Data in a Cookieless World

Why moving your tag container into a server-side environment changes the trust and accuracy equation for every downstream report.

·7 min read
Analytics

Designing a GA4 Ecommerce DataLayer Schema That Survives Contact with Reality

A field-by-field breakdown of the GA4 ecommerce object, and the schema decisions that keep a data layer maintainable past launch day.

·9 min read
Tag Management

Tag Management Governance: Stopping Container Sprawl Before It Starts

GTM workspaces multiply fast. Here's the review process that keeps a container auditable once more than two people can publish to it.

·6 min read
Data Engineering

Controlling BigQuery Costs on the GA4 Raw Export

The GA4-to-BigQuery export is a firehose. A few partitioning and materialization habits keep the monthly bill from surprising anyone.

·8 min read
Server-Side Tracking

Consent Mode v2: What You Actually Lose When a User Declines

Consent Mode doesn't just toggle tags on and off — it changes what a hit looks like on the wire. Here's what modeling can and can't fill in.

·6 min read