Marketers put a lot of work into digital campaigns, assuming the analytics will report back glowing success, prompting back-pats, high-fives and talk of promotion . There are, however, setup tasks that have to happen to track the data. Forgetting to do them can leave the marketer with little to show for their work. To avoid this anxiety and heartbreak, here is a really-short checklist you can follow to ensure you have basic website tracking in place:

  • Check for Google Analytics (GA) code on every page; assuming account exists. If the GA script has changed and if you have determined that you need to upgrade, arrange with your webmaster to change your Google Analytics script. This, plus many other script changes are easy if you put Google Tag Manager in place.
  • Ensure the Google code on your site supports any of the following if used: cross-subdomain tracking, CRM data integration, marketing automation platform Implement filters to exclude your internal office traffic.
  • If Internal site search used, ensure it is activated
  • Connect Search Console if not done
  • Setup Heatmaps on highly-trafficked pages, using a tool like HotJar
  • Confirm on leadgen pages that Events/Conversions recorded in Google Analytics
  • Create a backup copy of GA data to safeguard against loss by a team member through improper use of a filter
  • Check Property settings for timezone/currency, demographic and psychographic flags, Data Retention settings (GDPR)
  • Connect retargeting pixels from any social platforms used
  • If you are creating any offsite links pointing to one of your pages, create UTM parameters so your Google Analytics reports properly credit the original source.

To learn how we help companies mind their analytics setup, click below: