Google Analytics Audit Test #

138

Using Automated Tag QA

Why It Matters:

Critical to the basic function of marketing analytics and the capability to answer any marketing question.

Industries:

All

Checks For:

Utility

How powerful is your current implementation?

Insight Category:

Behavior

Can you tell what visitors are doing?

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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 the company is using an automated tag QA solution—a tool or system that regularly scans the site or app for broken, missing, or duplicate tracking tags. Without automated QA, data issues often go undetected until reports break or insights are lost, especially when:

  • Developers push new code
  • Marketing teams update landing pages
  • Tag configurations change in Google Tag Manager
  • Third-party integrations shift behavior

Manual QA is useful but not scalable. Automated tools help maintain trust in your analytics by detecting:

  • Missing or duplicate events
  • Unfired conversions
  • Google Tag Manager or gtag errors
  • Broken or outdated tags
  • Unexpected changes in tracking behavior

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How to Conduct This Test

Basic Tests

  • Ask your team or agency if you currently use any of the following:
    • Automated tag monitoring tools (e.g., ObservePoint, Tag Inspector, Datadog, QA2L)
    • Custom alerting systems that monitor Google Analytics data anomalies
    • Scheduled crawler tests that validate Google Tag Manager or Google Analytics presence and accuracy
  • In Google Analytics, look for signs of tracking inconsistency:
    • Event counts suddenly drop or spike
    • Duplicate or missing ecommerce events
    • Conversion rates become unstable after deployments

Advanced QA

In BigQuery, check for unusual event gaps with this query:

    SELECT event_name, COUNT(*) AS event_count
    FROM `your_dataset.events_*`
    WHERE _TABLE_SUFFIX BETWEEN 'YYYYMMDD' AND 'YYYYMMDD'
    GROUP BY event_name
    ORDER BY event_count ASC;
  • No automated QA in place? That’s a high risk for tracking drift and silent data loss.

Automated, Free Audit

Want to know if your tags are silently breaking? Run our Instant Audit

Or hire a pro to implement ongoing QA and alerting for your analytics.

How To Fix

  • Choose and implement an automated tag QA solution:
    • For websites: Consider tools like ObservePoint, Littledata, Tag Inspector, or GA QA plugins
    • For custom QA: Set up monitoring using scripts, scheduled crawlers, or anomaly detection in BigQuery
  • Set up alerting and scheduled scans for:
    • Tag firing consistency
    • Key conversion events
    • UTM parameters and campaign tracking
    • Ecommerce funnel health
  • Integrate QA into your deployment or release process, so that tracking is tested with every code push
  • Create a tag QA checklist and escalation plan so teams know what to do when issues are flagged
  • Hire a pro to implement automated analytics QA that scales with your business and keeps your data trustworthy.

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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