After a whirlwind trip to London for MeasureCamp, I’ve just about had time to process my thoughts, unpack my clothes and don my new t-shirt – they’re black this year, the nicest yet!

I arrived on Friday morning to attend a training session on Google Tag Manager, delivered by Doug Hall from Conversion Works.  It’s always great to learn from one of the best and I came away with some tips we’ll be putting into practice for our clients in the near future.

Doug has also written a guide called The Little Book of GTM Best Practices which I’d recommend downloading.

There’s usually training the day before MeasureCamp; it’s exceptionally high quality and affordable, so if you’re heading next time, check out the training on offer and get as much knowledge as you can from your trip.

After the training session, it was time to check-in to the hotel. I stayed at the Vauxhall Travelodge.  In normal circumstances I wouldn’t bother mentioning the hotel but the staff were really friendly, the room was great (it had air-con!), it’s literally beside the tube station (and a supermarket), and it’s only a 10 minute walk across the bridge to Pimlico to the MeasureCamp venue.  So if you’re planning a trip to MeasureCamp (assuming it’ll be held in the same place next time), it’s worth checking out.  The view from the room wasn’t bad either.

MeasureCamp itself on Saturday was great, as always.  It’s not your traditional conference – it’s an ‘unconference’. In other words, it’s not planned in advance. Anyone can run a session, deliver a presentation or chair a discussion simply by popping a post-it note on the session board. It sounds chaotic but it’s so well organised and everyone is so friendly and open to sharing knowledge, it all feels organic. And there’s free bacon and egg baps, which makes it even better.

Organiser, Peter O’Neill welcomed us all to start the day off, giving us an idea of what to expect, telling us which words will have you contributing to the “swear” jar (annoying buzz words and tech jargon – I was over-joyed to see “engagement” on there, big pet hate) and letting us in on MeasureCamp’s plans for the next few months (exciting times ahead!)

I stuck with Peter for the first session of the day as he explained how to ‘Overcome the Barriers to the Use of Analytics’.  Some really useful stuff which most of the people in the room could relate to. If you missed it, check out the slides below.

After that, I attended a session by Simo Ahava who discussed ‘The Data Layer’.  If you don’t know Simo, you should a) be ashamed and b) check out his blog. It’s quickly become essential reading for anyone working in analytics, his website is an invaluable resource for Google Tag Manager implementation in particular.  “Simo says” was a ‘swear word’ this year, replacing “Avinash says” – that in itself should tell you all you need to know!

Simo’s slides can be found below:

I attended two sessions by Craig Sullivan in the afternoon – ‘Surviving the A/B Testing Hype Cycle’ and ‘Conversion research in 1 hour’.  Both were great – Craig has an infectious presentation style – educational, irreverent and entertaining all at the same time.  You can’t help but like him and be inspired by his no-nonsense approach.

In between Craig’s sessions, I saw a presentation from Friday’s trainer, Doug Hall entitled ‘How to Analyse’ which gave us some food for thought on best practices and the way we work.

I had to leave half-way through the next presentation to catch my plane home (told you it was a whirlwind trip!) but I did catch a little bit of Phil Pearce‘s unique approach to tackling ‘zombies’ in your GTM setup – ‘Resident (Evil) Implementation’.

The day took a bizarre twist with a zombie attack mid-session (no, really!). I’m sorry I couldn’t hang around to find out what happened but hopefully everyone survived? Phil’s slides are below:

This was my second MeasureCamp – my first experience was London V, last September – and this time was just as good, if not better.  The sessions were top quality, everyone I met was extremely friendly and open to sharing knowledge and I came away feeling inspired and full of ideas.  To attend an event with such talented attendees, it’d be impossible not to.

Did you attend Measurecamp VII in London this weekend? What did you think? Let us know in the comments.