The Marketing Measurement Round Up: Edition #40
Ruler Analytics
Data Driven Marketing Attribution & Marketing Mix Modelling Software for Data Science and Marketing teams.
Welcome to another edition of In The Loop: The Marketing Measurement Round Up 👋
What you can expect from this newsletter: As a marketer, you know that measurement is essential to success. But with so many different metrics, data points and tools to choose from, it can be difficult to know where to start. That's where In The Loop comes in. Each week, we'll deliver the latest marketing measurement trends and best practices to help you measure your marketing effectiveness and improve ROI.
💡 For our 40th edition, we’re switching things up a bit! We’ve made some changes to give you even more value and help you get the most out of your marketing measurement.
From our perspective
Another week, another round of conversations with marketers frustrated with the visibility in GA4.
Common complaints include:
One big issue we’re hearing about a lot is data sampling. If you've worked with large data sets, you’ve probably noticed it.
Sometimes, GA4 uses sampling to speed things up by only analysing a portion of your data instead of the full set.
While this can make things quicker, it has its downsides. Relying on just a sample means you miss out on important details that a full dataset would provide.
To minimise sampling, you can:
While these methods help, they don’t solve the issue of aggregated data and missing first-party insights like leads, opps, and revenue.
A first-party data platform is needed to track everything that GA4 misses. It logs every conversion, like form submissions, phone calls, online purchases, and survey responses down to an individual level.
Also, it gathers your ad spend and campaign details, integrates with your CRM, and connects everything to track leads, opportunities, and revenue—tying it all back to each visitor’s journey on your site.
Head over to our guide on GA4 data sampling to find out how to fix it using the tips above.
The latest in marketing measurement
1. Updates and changes to Meta’s “Views” metric
Meta's making a big change—"Views" are now the main stat for Facebook and Instagram, taking over from "plays," "impressions," and "accounts reached.
Instagram started this back in August, and now Facebook’s following suit. The goal is to make analytics easier and more consistent for creators and brands.
Our thoughts
It’s a bit of a mixed bag for performance marketers. While Meta’s pitching this as a way to simplify things, the inclusion of repeat views for non-video content could skew results.
Basically, you might see pumped-up view counts that make CPMs (cost per thousand impressions) look better on paper—even if engagement hasn’t really improved.
That said, this shift isn’t as game-changing as it sounds. The real conversation should focus less on the labels—“views” versus “impressions”—and more on how these numbers drive the bigger picture, like customer journeys and actual revenue.
At the end of the day, it’s not just about racking up views but about making them count.
2. Google adds WhatsApp ‘conversation started’ conversion action
Google’s rolled out a new conversion action called “Conversation Started.”
This feature lets you track when people start chats through message-based tools, making it easier to see how engaging your chat options are. It’s part of Google-hosted conversions and seems to work across platforms, but it’s particularly aimed at WhatsApp Message Assets in Google Ads.
Our thoughts
For marketers, this adds another way to connect with customers—beyond the usual form submissions or phone calls—and captures a key step in the customer journey. You’ll be able to track how many people are starting these chats and how many of those turn into valuable actions, like sales or form submissions.
If you’re managing tons of these chats daily from different channels, campaigns, keywords, and ads, it can be tough to tie revenue back to specific chats. Without that connection, improving and optimising campaigns could be a bit of a headache.
Still, it’s a step forward for tracking customer interactions and making chat-based engagement part of the bigger picture.
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Just for fun
Since we're on the topic and ‘tis the season…