bibb Analytics Build in Public: Introduction

If you work in BI, you have likely built data models for other people’s businesses. The odds that you have applied the same rigor to your own side project are low. I know because I did not, for a long time.

Marketing analytics is also one of the most in-demand adjacent skills for BI professionals. Companies want people who can connect commercial questions to the data that answers them. That combination is closer to what BI people already know than most realize.

This series documents doing it properly, on bibb.pro, in public.

Pascal and I connected back in October 2025. He is co-founder of Dashflow, a Swiss marketing analytics startup working with some of the largest companies in Switzerland. He brings marketing expertise with a strong BI background; I bring the analytics depth with a solid grasp of marketing. We found common ground early and the collaboration felt natural.

It is important to note that this collaboration between bibb and Dashflow does not carry any financial agreement. We are very thankful to Pascal and the Dashflow team for allowing us to use their platform and for the consulting we have received from them.

Marketing analytics beyond the Google Analytics (GA4) basics has always been something I wanted to get right for bibb. The blocker was never interest, it was everything that comes with it: bibb has grown to a size where the native connector’s shortcomings are painfully obvious. The complexity of marketing analytics is high, and doing it right is easier said than done. And running this solo, on top of everything else bibb already demands, is a real constraint. This one stayed in the to-do bucket for a long time.

Happily, two things changed. Sajjad joined the project, which brought the capacity to actually do this properly instead of just plan it. And my book was finally published, which freed up the focus to commit.

bibb’s setup looks simple on paper: GA4, Dashflow, Mailjet and Gumroad. In practice, marketing analytics is one of the more complex integration problems in the space. This series documents that honestly.

To be completely honest, we are not starting from zero. GA4 has been running since day one, the client-side configuration is solid, and the consent architecture is fully GDPR compliant.

The goal of this project is collecting actionable data that supports bibb’s growth.

The series will be broken into several posts, each covering a different aspect of the marketing analytics implementation:

Planned posts in the series

This series is published as it happens. Posts get updated as decisions are made and results come in. The log below tracks what changed and why.

Everything documented here reflects real decisions on a real platform.

Diary and log change

• 2026-07-23: Pascal proposed the build in public structure: tracking setup on bibb.pro, Google Ads as an additional channel, and a public dashboard built by Sajjad.
• 2026-08-19: Decided to stay with direct GA4 over GTM. Pascal recommended GTM for easier future deployment, but switching would require reworking the existing consent-first architecture, which already gates all tracking scripts behind user consent. The risk was not worth the benefit. The direct implementation uses a ga_client_id user property to give Dashflow the session identifier it needs for matching. Pascal confirmed this works on their end.
• 2026-08-19: Gumroad receipt snippet approach confirmed. Gumroad supports custom JS on the receipt page and exposes the order ID via $ORDER. Plan: capture ga_client_id and order ID together on the receipt page. Pascal confirmed this is the best-case scenario for matching transactions to sessions.
• 2026-08-19: Dashflow confirmed Gumroad data ingestion via API pull on a schedule. Schema and authentication to be defined in a follow-up meeting with the Dashflow team.
• 2026-08-10: Broke the original post into three standalone posts (strategy, GA4, implementation) for a better reading experience. Added a Dash-Flow post to the series. Added this diary section.