1. I love the “This is Fine” meme. It feels a little too real sometimes. Just imagine being a CMO and having to explain to a contractor why session_start is not what you use to count sessions.
  2. Every now and then I come across contractors whose entire top-of-funnel reporting is built around session_start. And they insist it’s “more logical” that way. I always listen carefully to the full explanation.
  3. When a contractor doesn’t understand the basic metrics, it becomes very hard for them to build sane analytics. In that situation, marketing ends up spending time not on strategy, but on basic education.
  4. If session_start is part of the calculation, that’s not analytics. That’s a cry for help.
  5. The fix is actually simple: a technical spec, clear calculation standards, a unified event logic, documented formulas, and one or two training sessions. That’s usually enough to make sure session_start stops being the foundation and goes back to where it belongs: the events section, as a source for proxy metrics.
  6. So now, whenever I see suspicious metrics, I already know: if session_start is in the calculation, that’s not analytics. That’s a cry for help.

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