Analytics setup that answers real questions
Most analytics installs record everything and explain nothing. This one starts with the questions and only measures what answers them.
You have Google Analytics. You have had it for years. Nobody in the building opens it, because the last time somebody did they could not tell whether the number in front of them was good.
What changes
Four questions you can answer by the end of the month.
Which pages do the selling
Not which get the most visits. Which ones the people who eventually buy have read, and in what order.
Where the drop happens
The exact step people leave on, split by phone and desktop, because it is almost never the same step on both.
What a customer costs
By channel and by campaign, counted once. Two platforms claiming the same sale is the most common reason a reported cost per customer is wrong.
Whether last month was good
Against the month before it and the same month last year, on a number that has meant the same thing the whole time.
How it runs
Four weeks, in this order.
The order matters more than the speed. Measuring before agreeing what to measure is how an account fills with events nobody can name a year later.
Write the questions down
Two hours with whoever knows the business. We leave with a list of things you cannot currently answer, ranked by what a right answer would be worth.
Name every event
A written plan: each event, when it fires, what it carries and which question it serves. You approve it before a line of code is written.
Install and prove it
Tags go in, then we test them the only way that works, by using the site and watching what arrives. Nothing is signed off on a screenshot of a dashboard.
Read it back to you
The first monthly read, in plain language, with the things that surprised us marked as surprises rather than buried.
What is included
Everything below, on every engagement.
- A written measurement plan you keep, whether or not you keep us
- Google Analytics 4 configured from scratch, or audited and repaired if you already have it
- Google Tag Manager, with a container you own and can read
- Server side tagging where ad blocking is costing you meaningful volume
- Consent Mode v2, set up so visitors in the UK and EU are handled lawfully
- Custom dimensions registered, so the reports break down by the things your business cares about
- Cross domain tracking where a checkout or a booking tool sits on another domain
- A monthly read of the numbers, written by a person
The tools
Named once, for the person checking the work.
- Google Analytics 4
- Google Tag Manager, web and server
- Looker Studio
- BigQuery, where the volume justifies it
- Consent Mode v2
- Meta Conversions API and Google Enhanced Conversions
Questions people ask
The ones that actually arrive.
We already have Google Analytics. Do we need this?
Probably not all of it. The usual finding is that the tag is fine and the plan behind it never existed, so the data is real but nobody knows what any of it means. That is a smaller job and we will tell you if it is what you have.
How long until we see anything?
Four weeks to the first honest read. The install itself is quicker, but a week of data is not a trend, and a number read too early gets acted on and then apologised for.
Will this slow the site down?
A tag container adds weight, so we keep it small and load it after the page is usable. If the current install is already slowing you down we will say so, because a slow page loses more customers than a good report wins back.
Who owns the accounts?
You do. We work inside your properties with the access we need and no more. If we stop working together you change one permission and everything stays where it is.
Do you sell the data or add us to anything?
No. We do not buy data, we do not enrich it, and nothing leaves your accounts except the reading we write for you.
Your turn
Bring one question you cannot currently answer.
30 minutes. We will tell you whether it is measurable, roughly what it would take, and whether we are the right people for it.