This post is my exact style

Did you miss me? I sure missed you. But we’re back with the eighth episode of this little newsletter, so buckle up!?

I’m a little late because I was at the Digital Summit conference where I gave a rousing presentation on GA4 (which included a little juggling).

And then last week I was giving away free Google Analytics 4 consultations pretty much every hour of every day. And I loved every minute of it. In fact, I loved it so much, I want you to get in on the fun. Here's your chance to book a 30-minute session where I'll answer any questions you have about your GA4 configuration.

This also inspired me to add a new section to this newsletter.?

Every episode, starting with this one, will feature a GA4, GTM, or Looker Studio tip for everyone!

Enough with the pleasantries. Time to share the good stuff.?

Part 1: Cloning your exact style

This entire section is pretty much stolen from an incredible presentation at the Digital Summit conference. Andrew Davis blew my mind with his presentation on creating Digital Doppelgangers.?

If that sounds scary, it really isn’t.?

It’s actually incredibly cool.?

I’ll give you the tl;dr of his presentation: most of us are using AI wrong. We’re using it to design unicorn/muskrat mashups and to put pirate ships in coffee cups.?Or we're trying to create entire marketing strategies for us, or we're using it to fire entire staffs of people in the desperate hope AI can replace them. And a few other things.

Okay, that’s not necessarily the wrong way to use it (except the firing staff and creating marketing strategies part), but that’s not the true superpower of AI.?

We should be using AI for its incredible power to mimic and imitate.?

In other words, we should be using AI to be an extension of ourselves so we can get more done.?

It’s kind of like cloning yourself, but not in a creepy dystopian way.?

More like in a way that makes you more productive and allows you to do more.?

Here’s the essence of how you create a digital doppelganger (disclaimer - this is my poor attempt to recreate the steps from Andrew's presentation. You really should follow him for the real process, but this can at least get you started):

Step 1 - Pick a very small scope.?

Don’t try to make your doppelganger do something huge. It can do one thing really well. That’s all you want here.?

For example, you can build a doppelganger that generates grammar tips in your exact style.?

Step 2 - Gather your examples

For this to work, you are going to need examples. You can’t go to ChatGPT and just start telling it to do something. You need examples to train it to be just like you! Otherwise, the output will be yet another generic ChatGPT bot.?

Step 3 - Start building your new twin in ChatGPT

Go to ChatGPT and start a new conversation. It has to be a brand new, untainted conversation, and you need to make sure you don’t talk about anything else in this new chat.?

Begin your chat by telling ChatGPT about itself. Using the grammar tips example from above, you’ll open the conversation by saying something like this: “Hello! You create the world’s greatest grammar tips! You create great grammar tips with clear examples, and you are also funny when providing those tips. How does that sound?”

ChatGPT will get really excited to hear this and want to start producing grammar tips right away, but that’s not what you want it to do.?

First you need to feed it examples. Take those examples you gathered before and feed them to ChatGPT one at a time. After a couple examples, ask ChatGPT what it has learned about your style. If the summary is wrong, then you should correct it.?

Step 4 - Provide your feedback

Now that ChatGPT knows what to do, give it a chance to do it. It won’t get it right the first time. You’ll ask it to produce a grammar tip on semicolons, and it will emulate the structure you use, but it won’t be your exact style.?

So now you need to give it feedback. Being specific is great. You should actually rewrite what ChatGPT gave you, and then feed that rewrite back. Make sure you tell ChatGPT you’ve made changes, and ask what new information it has learned.?

You’ll probably have to do this a few times before ChatGPT is ready to act exactly like you.?

Step 5 - Give your doppelganger a name

As goofy as this sounds, naming your doppelganger in ChatGPT will improve its output. Studies have shown this. I know, it’s wild. I guess the robots just want to be humans after all.?

Once you’ve completed all these steps, your new doppelganger will be ready to go to work.?

Tell people when you use your doppelganger

Spoiler alert: I’ve used my doppelganger to create this episode’s grammar tip (with some revisions on my end). I'd love your feedback after you read it. Does it match my style??

Oh, and one more thing. Be transparent when you use your doppelganger. If you use your new clone, let people know who wrote it. Otherwise, you’re kind of a liar.?

Honestly, it took me longer to build the doppelganger, create the first example, and do all the edits than it would normally take to create the whole grammar tip from scratch, but I suspect it will be much faster over time.?

Ready to give it a try? Let me know in the comments what you build for your first doppelganger.?

And thanks again to Andrew Davis for his outstanding presentation and brilliant idea for using the true superpower of AI.?

Part 2: Why your referral channel is all screwed up in GA4

So you’re getting some referral traffic to your website. That’s great!

But have you ever checked where that referral traffic is coming from??

Go ahead and look. It’s simple. Just add the secondary dimension “source / medium” to your standard report and you’ll see exactly what those referrals are.?

Notice anything that doesn’t look right??

Here are some common issues you might see when you look at this report:

• Subdomains you’re already tracking in the same GA4 property showing up
• Your own domain appearing as a referral (WTF?)
• Payment gateways like paypal.com showing up
• Calendar apps like hubspot or calendly stealing credit
• Other form tracking or appointment booking services like nexhealth.com or appointnow.com

These issues are especially common if you have any type of process that involves going to another site to complete an action.?

For example: let’s say you have a healthcare site. You use a third-party tool like NexHealth to let patients book appointments online. They click an ad to get to your site. Then they click the “Book Now” button that takes them to nexhealth.com. They book the appointment and come back to your site. In this situation, GA4 records two sessions - one from Paid Search and one from Referrals. Guess which one gets the credit for that appointment. The Referral, which is Nexhealth.com.?

I hope you can see the problem here.?

Nexhealth.com didn’t drive that appointment.?

Your ad did.?

But you don’t know that now do you??

Nope, your data is all wrong!?

We’ve talked about attribution here before. In a previous rant, I told you how important it is to collect self-reported attribution.?

Now I’m telling you to exclude unwanted referrals from your analytics so you don’t screw up your data.?

It’s easy to do.

Just go to Admin > Data Streams > Configure Tag Settings > Load More > Unwanted Referrals.?

Then you add the conditions.?

Here are the general rules I suggest:

• Always add your own domain as an unwanted referral
• If you have an ecommerce site with a checkout, add all your payment gateways (you can use regex, or you can painstakingly add them one at a time)
• If you have any type of third-party calendar or booking system, add that domain?

Note: Adding these unwanted referrals is not retroactive. It won’t get rid of the existing data, but you’ll have more accurate reporting moving forward.?

Another piece of advice: make sure you aren't removing any real referrals in the process.

For example, as a HubSpot Partner, we want to know if someone finds our HubSpot partner listing, so that should be a referral. For us, instead of adding hubspot.com as an unwanted referral, we would add meetings.hubspot.com. Otherwise, we would lose all referral tracking from HubSpot!

So get yourself into GA4 and start adding those unwanted referrals right now.?

The longer you wait, the more credit will be stolen by your other systems.?

Part 3: How to use semicolons without trying too hard to be cool

Reminder - I used my digital doppelganger to write this section of the newsletter (although I had to do some significant rewrites since this was the first time I had it do something for me). Let me know what you think of this compared to previous grammar tips.

Semicolons: because sometimes a period just seems too final, and a comma doesn’t always pull its weight. Semicolons are here to step in when you’ve got two complete thoughts that are way too dependent on each other to be split apart, but you’re also not ready for them to go off on their own. It’s like a relationship where you keep “talking” but refuse to call it dating.

But let’s be honest here. Most people suck at using semicolons.?

Since we all love making up stats in LinkedIn posts, here’s a made-up stat: 78.23% of all semicolons are used incorrectly.?

That’s a shocking amount of bad semicolons!

So let’s figure out how to clean it up.?

Here are the correct use cases for semicolons. Follow this advice and you’ll never look like a semicolon noob again.?

1. Connecting Two Independent Clauses:

I’m not going to teach you what an independent clause is here, so let’s simplify it by saying it’s a complete sentence. A semicolon can put two of these things together.?

If you’ve got two sentences that could stand alone but you’re too much of a control freak to let them, you toss in a semicolon. It lets them stay together without committing to a period. Think of it like a comma but with more guts (although that analogy isn’t great because semicolons and commas are never interchangeable).?

Example:

• Incorrect: "I love SEO, keyword strategy drives results."
• Correct: "I love SEO; keyword strategy drives results." These are two separate ideas, but they clearly belong in the same conversation. Without the semicolon, it’s like they’re awkwardly running into each other at a party.

You don’t want to overdo it; most of the time, you’ll probably want periods instead of semicolons. Just be cool about it and throw in a casual semicolon every so often.?

2. Handling Complex Lists:

Commas are usually great for listing stuff, but some lists require a little more punch.?

When your list items are so complicated that commas alone feel like they’ve given up, enter the semicolon. It’s the only thing holding your chaotic marketing strategies together when each list item demands more attention than your average sentence can handle.

Example:

• Incorrect: "In our content strategy, we focus on keyword research, link building, and on-page SEO, paid search, display ads, and remarketing, and UX optimization, A/B testing, and analytics."
• Correct: "In our content strategy, we focus on keyword research, link building, and on-page SEO; paid search, display ads, and remarketing; and UX optimization, A/B testing, and analytics."?

See how semicolons keep everything from turning into one big mess? In the above example, we grouped similar items in the list with semicolons to make it more manageable. Your strategy should be complex, but your punctuation shouldn’t be.

3. Before Conjunctive Adverbs:

There goes Nate throwing around more grammar words. You know the conjunctive adverbs, right? Didn’t you pay attention to School House Rocks? Or did they just sing about regular conjunctions? I can’t remember.?

When you need to make a point but also feel the need to show off with words like "however" or "therefore," semicolons step in. It’s like they’re saying, “Yeah, I could end this sentence, but I’m not done yet.”

Example:

• Incorrect: "We should optimize for mobile, however, the client doesn’t care."
• Correct: "We should optimize for mobile; however, the client doesn’t care."?

The semicolon gives “however” the space it needs to breathe and makes your point sound more deliberate. And less like you’re just rambling.

When NOT to Use a Semicolon:

Don’t get semicolon-happy. Just because you’ve figured out how to use one doesn’t mean you should start sprinkling them everywhere like they’re some kind of magic writing dust. One or two correctly used semicolons makes you look like an expert writer. A dozen semicolons, even if correctly used, makes you look like a tryhard.?

Aside from using too many, here are some times you never want semicolons:?

• Between a Dependent and Independent Clause: Wrong: "Because user experience matters; we redesigned the entire site." Right: "Because user experience matters, we redesigned the entire site." Let’s not get carried away with unnecessary punctuation experiments, okay?
• To Separate Completely Unrelated Ideas: Wrong: "I love UX design; paid social ads are overrated." Right: "I love UX design. Paid social ads are overrated." Unless you’re trying to confuse people on purpose, keep your unrelated ideas in their own sentences.

Final Thoughts:

Semicolons are cool when used correctly; they make your writing sharper and more effective. (Damn, that looked pretty slick, right?)

But like any tool, they have their place. Use them wisely, or risk looking like you’re just trying too hard.

And using them incorrectly makes you look like a Suckspeare.?

So if you’re ever in doubt, just ditch the semicolon. And never go out of your way to write sentences just so you can use semicolons; that’s lame.?

Episode Recap:

Let’s break it all down into 3 easy steps:

1. Go build yourself a digital doppelganger.
2. Exclude those unwanted referrals in GA4 to get your attribution back on track.
3. Stop misusing semicolons; you look like an amateur writer.?

What did you think of this issue? Did you learn anything? Did you like the work of my digital doppelganger? Let me know your thoughts in the comments, and let me know if there are any topics you'd like to see me tackle in the future.