03 / Measurement
Measurement: GA4, server-side tagging and consent
One set of numbers that marketing, finance and the board can all use. Most arguments about marketing performance are really arguments about instrumentation, and they are cheaper to settle than to keep having.
We work on
- GA4
- Google Tag Manager
- Server-side tagging
- Consent Mode
- Conversions API
- Event deduplication
- Attribution and reporting
What goes wrong
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Consent signals that arrive after the tags have fired
If your consent platform does not pass all four Consent Mode parameters before your tags fire, Google treats the visit as non-consented whatever your banner says. It produces no error, only a slow decline in reported conversions.
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The same conversion counted twice
Browser tags and a server-side Conversions API both reporting the same purchase, without the event IDs that let the platform recognise them as one. Reported performance looks better than it is, and budget follows the wrong signal.
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Numbers that do not reconcile with finance
The analytics number, the platform number and the order count in the shop system are three different figures. Until they can be explained, no decision built on any of them is safe.
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A server container nobody owns
Set up once, running since, with no documentation of what it forwards or to whom. It is both a measurement risk and a data protection one.
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Session identity that breaks at the checkout hop
Cross-domain continuity fails between the site and the payment provider, and the sale is attributed to nothing, or to the payment provider.
What we do
- Tracking build
- Events, parameters and conversions specified in writing before anything is implemented, then built and verified against that specification.
- Consent
- Consent Mode configured so the signals pass before tags fire, and the tag inventory mapped against what each one actually does with the data.
- Server-side
- Server container design, what should move off the browser and what should not, and documentation of what forwards where.
- Conversions API
- Platform coverage with event IDs and deduplication, so a purchase reported twice is counted once.
- Attribution
- A model that survives a long sales cycle and offline conversion, and that finance can be walked through without a caveat.
- Reporting
- One report the marketing team, the finance team and the board can all use, with the definitions written down.
This page loads nothing from a third party. No analytics, no tag manager, no advertising pixel, no hosted font. Open your own network panel and every request on it goes to this domain, which is the shortest demonstration we can give you of the work.
One way in
The GA4 and Consent Mode audit
If you would rather start with a fixed-scope read of what is running now than commission a build, that is the audit: nine checks, each recorded with the evidence behind it, returned as a severity-rated findings log with fixes costed from a fixed band table.
Related
Clean measurement is what makes the other three worth buying. Conversion rate optimisation, marketing technology and incrementality testing all read out through it.
Tell us what your numbers are doing
One email starts it. No form, no queue, no account to create, and no discovery call before anyone has told you anything useful.
That opens a message to info@mktg-consulting.com with the four things we need already listed. Answer what you can and we will ask for the rest.
What to include
- Which of the four areas you are asking about, or that you are not sure
- What is already in place, and roughly how long it has been there
- What is driving the timing, because that usually decides the shape of the work
We reply to every enquiry within one working day, including the ones we are not right for. If it is not work we should be doing we will say so and, where we can, say who should. A site promising a reply and never saying when is a promise nobody can hold us to.