No tool, not even Google Analytics, can claim to be the sole source of truth. The customer journey has become so complex that advertising impact must be viewed from three different perspectives: via classic attribution, statistically through MMMs, and through experiments that evaluate the incremental value of channels. We saw this demonstrated on stage with practical examples: None of it is trivial, but all of it is feasible.

In the future, GA4 will cover at least two of these perspectives. Cross-platform performance measurement will become significantly easier through integrations with Meta, TikTok, and Snapchat. When all channels converge here, MMM features will also become feasible. The alpha version presented can already evaluate the effectiveness of channels and suggest optimizations for media budgets.

For now, the built-in AI assistants in Google Analytics can primarily display data without requiring users to create a new report. The AI agent for DA Direkt Insurance—developed by us and presented at the conference—is significantly more powerful: It not only identifies anomalies on its own but also provides the reasons behind them. The time between “problem detected” and “problem solved” is thus becoming shorter and shorter.

Organic traffic is declining; thanks to our traffic study, we now know by how much. The crucial question is no longer how we can bring back the old traffic, but how we measure our impact in the digital space. Disciplines such as SEO, GEO, and SEA must converge more closely to achieve this.

As long as marketing thinks only in terms of impressions and click prices, it will remain a cost center in the eyes of many CFOs. We must clearly demonstrate its impact on business goals such as revenue. This can only be achieved with a strong data foundation—and it’s up to us to create it.