toolkit

Scenario · The bigger jobs

Set up measurement on this site

“Get Analytics and Tag Manager on the new site.” Or: “Is Search Console even connected?”

Installing analytics, a tag manager, and search tracking usually arrive as three separate requests, but done one at a time the standard result is a duplicated tag, a leftover container from a previous agency, and a property nobody ever actually verified. This checks what's already measuring the site before anything new goes in, confirms the finished setup fires exactly once per tag on every page — including the pages after a form submission that everyone forgets to check — and verifies the data is actually flowing before calling the job done.

What to ask for

Analytics & tagsAnalytics & tag presence audit — reads a page's delivered HTML and inventories the measurement, advertising and session-replay tags firing on it: Google Tag Manager, GA4, legacy Universal Analytics, Google Ads, Meta Pixel, LinkedIn, TikTok, Microsoft Ads, Pinterest, Clarity, Hotjar, Segment, Matomo.GTM audit and fixUnified Google Tag Manager audit-and-fix workflow.GA4 behaviour seriesOptional integration — reads the GA4 Data API and writes the behaviour series, the sibling to Search Console series.Search Console seriesOptional integration — reads Search Console's Search Analytics API and writes the data series nothing else has.

See it work

A real run of Analytics & tags:

FAIL — 1 page(s)
      tags: Universal Analytics (legacy) (UA-12345-1) — legacy
      [error] legacy Universal Analytics present (UA-12345-1) — UA stopped processing data in July 2023; this tag is dead weight
      [warn] no analytics or tag manager detected — is this page being measured?

  playbook: local fallback

  report: ./out/analytics-and-tags-analytics-and-tags.html
  text:   ./out/analytics-and-tags-analytics-and-tags.txt

The captured report, exactly as a run hands it to a client —open the full report ↗

Installing Analytics, Tag Manager and Search Console are three requests that arrive separately and are one job: getting a site measured correctly from nothing. Done piecemeal, the usual result is two containers, a duplicated tag, and a property nobody verified.

  1. Find out what is already there. The tag audit on the live page inventories every measurement and advertising tag currently firing. Sites described as unmeasured routinely have a container from a previous agency still live, and adding a second is how double-counting starts.
  2. [manual] Create or claim the properties. Tag Manager container, GA4 property, Search Console property, under accounts the practice owns rather than an individual’s personal Google login. This is the step that is painful to undo later and it is the one most often done expediently.
  3. [manual] Install the container on the site, on every template — including the ones nobody remembers, like the booking page and the thank-you page. A container present on most pages produces data that looks complete and is not.
  4. Wire the tags inside the container. The authenticated Tag Manager workspace can create and link tags, triggers and variables and publish a version, which is preferable to hand-building where the configuration is repetitive. One GA4 configuration tag, one trigger, no legacy Universal Analytics.
  5. Verify from the outside. The tag audit again: exactly one GA4 tag, one container, no duplicates, no legacy analytics, and present on every page type. Then the container audit to confirm what is published matches what you built — the page shows what fired, the container shows what was intended.
  6. Verify Search Console properly. Confirm the property is verified, the sitemap is submitted, and it is reporting. An unverified property is the commonest form of “Search Console is set up”.
  7. Wait, then read the data. Pull the analytics and Search Console series after a few days. Measurement that is installed but reporting nothing is the failure this catches, and it is only visible with time on the clock.

The thank-you page is the one that gets missed

Container coverage is checked on the home page and assumed everywhere. Conversion measurement depends entirely on the pages that come after a form, and those are built once and never looked at again. Step 3 names them because “site-wide” and “on every template” are not the same claim.

What this does not cover

Consent and what may lawfully be collected. A medical practice's site measures people looking at treatment pages, and whether a given tag may fire before consent — or at all — is a legal question no check here answers. It reports what is firing and what a container publishes; it does not tell you that a page about a procedure should not be sending its URL to an advertising network.

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