Why we use Google BigQuery for large websites

Google BigQuery is a powerful cloud-based data warehousing and analytics platform that enables large websites to store, manage and analyse large data sets using a variety of standardised and custom created queries. It is built to hold and process large data sets and it offers many benefits including out-of-the-box integrations into other Google products like GA4, Search Console and Google Ads.

One of the core benefits (and why is often selected as a platform) of BigQuery is its ability to store and manipulate large datasets. It is capable of processing petabytes of data in seconds (imagine store transactional data), which makes it a great solution for companies like retailers that generate massive amounts of data on a daily basis. With BigQuery you can store and process all of your data in one place, this makes it easier to generate insights allowing you to make data-driven decisions. An example of this would be to identify what products are purchased on what days and in what areas. This can allow you to stock up in certain locations with specific products based on anticipated demand.

Insight: BigQuery can analyse data from various sources, including social media platforms, online advertising campaigns, purchase data, demographic data and user behaviour. Consolidating all this data into a single view you can create predictive models.

BigQuery is infinitely (almost) scalable; you can add on processing and space as needed and you pay for what you use. So if you’re cloud based it means you can store and analyse as much data as your organisation needs without worrying about capacity limitations or hardware upgrades.

Insight: Scalability is vital if there are sudden spikes in traffic or data volumes. BigQuery can handle this with ease.

BigQuery provides live real-time analytics capabilities; this allows you to identify trends and changes in real-time. So you can check what’s popular (like batteries, inverters and solar panels in SA at the moment) and it allows you to make data driven business decisions on pricing strategy, inventory, distribution and even complementary or alternative products.

Insight: Need to make decisions using real-time data? BigQuery can crunch live and historical data and provide actionable insights.

BigQuery has a number of competitors including Oracle, Amazon and IBM amongst a number of others. So you have options, and you can choose what suits your budget and what works best for you and of course your data. At IMS we use Google Cloud products and BigQuery because of its cost-effectiveness, great support and its pay-as-you-use model.

To get more out of your data consider a product like Google BigQuery. If you have any questions about your setup or data reach out to us.