- Silent errors
- the dangerous kind
- Under-reporting
- the usual direction
- First
- before optimisation work
GA4 Consulting
A large share of GA4 setups we audit are under-reporting conversions, and nobody knows because analytics fails quietly. Every optimisation decision, bid strategy and budget argument downstream inherits the error.
- Sequence
- Fix measurement before optimising.
Why this comes first
Broken analytics does not produce an error message. It produces plausible-looking numbers that are wrong, and everyone builds on them. Automated bidding optimises toward a distorted conversion signal. Channel budgets shift based on misattributed revenue. Someone defends a strategy in a board meeting with figures that do not reflect what happened.
This is why we often start engagements here even when the client came for something else. Optimising against numbers you cannot trust is expensive and produces confident wrong conclusions.
The common faults are mundane: events firing twice, conversions not firing at all on certain paths, consent configuration blocking measurement entirely, cross-domain tracking broken so a checkout on a payment subdomain counts as a new session, and internal traffic never filtered.
- 8 areas
- One body of work, not a menu.
What’s included
Implementation audit
Systematic verification that events fire correctly, once, on every path a real user might take.
Event and conversion architecture
Designing an event structure that answers your actual business questions rather than the default template.
Cross-domain and subdomain tracking
A frequent silent failure, particularly where checkout or booking sits on a separate domain.
Server-side tagging
Where it is warranted, for measurement resilience and data control. We will also say when it is not worth the cost.
Consent mode
Configuration that respects consent while retaining measurement, since misconfiguration here commonly zeroes out data.
Ecommerce tracking
Full purchase and item-level implementation, which is where most errors live and where they cost most.
Attribution and modelling
Configuring attribution deliberately, and explaining honestly what it can and cannot tell you.
Reporting and BigQuery
Explorations, looker dashboards and BigQuery export for analysis the interface cannot support.
- Common questions
- Asked on most first calls.
Questions
How do we know if our GA4 is wrong?
Compare GA4 conversions against your backend or payment records. A persistent gap of more than a few percent indicates a problem. Most setups have one.
Do we need server-side tagging?
It helps measurement resilience and data control, at real implementation and hosting cost. Worth it for larger sites and regulated contexts; often not worth it below that.
Our data dropped when we added a cookie banner.
Expected, and the size of the drop depends on configuration. Consent mode implemented properly retains modelled data. Implemented badly it blocks measurement entirely, which is common.
Can you fix our historical data?
No. Analytics data cannot be retroactively corrected. We can annotate the point of change so future analysis accounts for it, which is the best available outcome.
Should we use something other than GA4?
Alternatives exist and have genuine advantages, particularly on privacy and data ownership. For most businesses the integration with Google Ads makes GA4 the practical choice.
- Related
- Often scoped alongside this.
Related services
MarTech Consulting
Stack audits and integration so platforms stop contradicting each other.
Customer Data Platform
Unifying customer data into profiles campaigns can act on.
Conversion Rate Optimization
Testing on high-traffic templates, prioritised by revenue.
PPC Services
Search, shopping and performance campaigns structured for control.
SEO Audit
Fixed-scope diagnostic. Findings and raw data yours to keep.
- Next step
- We look at your site before the call.
Start with a free audit
An automated crawl plus a 30-minute walkthrough of what we can see from outside your site. If what you need isn’t something we do well, we’ll tell you.