Google Analytics Audit Test #

53

First-Touch Attribution to SMS

Why It Matters:

Critical to understanding where your traffic is coming from and assigning appropriate credit.

Industries:

All

Checks For:

Accuracy

How accurate is your recent data?

Insight Category:

Attribution

Can you tell which marketing efforts are working?

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Background

A GA4 audit is essential for uncovering missing insights—key data points that organizations don't yet know and can act upon. A well-done audit evaluates both behavioral tracking and traffic attribution, ensuring each is accurate and useful. It also assesses whether the data collected truly supports business decisions and reporting.

Test Detail

This test checks whether SMS campaigns are receiving proper first-touch attribution in GA4. SMS is often used to drive traffic for promotions, reminders, or cart recovery—but if links are not tagged or redirect improperly, users may show up as:

  • Direct traffic
  • Unassigned
  • Incorrectly attributed to a fallback source like "referral" or "organic"

Improper attribution reduces visibility into SMS campaign performance and can mislead decisions about retention, ROI, and channel strategy.

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How to Conduct This Test

Basic Tests

  • In GA4 > Explore, build a Free-form report:

    • Dimensions: Session source/medium, Landing page + query string
    • Metrics: Sessions, Conversions, Revenue
    • Filter for source or medium values like sms, text, or twilio
    • Check if any first-touch sessions appear for SMS-driven campaigns

  • In BigQuery, you can validate by analyzing session attribution for short links or known SMS tracking domains using this query:

    SELECT session_source, session_medium, COUNT(*) AS sessions
    FROM `your_dataset.events_*`
    WHERE page_location LIKE '%utm_medium=sms%'
       OR page_location LIKE '%utm_medium=text%'
    GROUP BY session_source, session_medium
    ORDER BY sessions DESC;
  • If you have SMS campaigns running and see no traffic or conversions attributed to them, it’s a sign of broken or missing tagging.

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How To Fix

  • Use UTM parameters on all SMS links:
    • utm_source=[SMS platform]
    • utm_medium=sms
    • utm_campaign=name-of-campaign
  • Avoid link shorteners or redirect tools that strip query parameters
  • Test a sample SMS link to ensure GA4 is preserving UTMs and registering the session source/medium correctly
  • Update GA4 Channel Grouping to include utm_medium=sms in a business appropriate channel
  • If using platforms like Klaviyo, Attentive, Postscript, or Twilio, configure default UTM templates within those tools
  • Hire a pro to implement bulletproof SMS attribution so you can measure the impact of one of your highest-intent channels.

Tips from a Google Analytics Consultant

Focus on Insights

Every Google Analytics audit should result in a plan for more insights.

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An insight is:

  • something you don't know
  • and can act on to improve performance

The Goal

Identify and remove insight blockers. Don't get tempted to track things you can't act on!

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