Whether you are implementing tracking and analytics from scratch or just updating and improving your current setup, you should always plan ahead and document both your Google Analytics account settings and your Google Tag Manager tags and triggers. Understand the benefits of building a measurement plan and use our free template to get started.

1. Building A Solid Analytics
Measurement Plan
Step-by-Step + Free Template
House Of Progress

2. Don’t get lost in a sea of data!

3. Organize, plan and find the right path!

4. What are the benefits of building a measurement plan?
Have Clarity on what is and what needs to be tracked & configured in
your analytics account

5. What are the benefits of building a measurement plan?
Save time spent in communication:
● between teams or other stakeholders
● when getting new analytics hires up
too speed
Save
Time

6. What are the benefits of building a measurement plan?
Correctly INTEGRATE additional analytics
implementations (without breaking existing
analytics setups)

7. The process has 5 steps divided into two main parts:
1. The measurement plan -
This is the “What” part, where we decide what needs to be
measured.
1. The Technical plan
This is the “How” part, where we describe how we’ll track our
relevant metrics

8. The measurement plan
It will help you think more clearly about
your analytics, as well as stay organized
and on the same page with your team
when it comes to what’s being tracked
right now.

9. STEP #1: Set Your Business Objectives & KPIs
Let’s assume we have a software company whose main objectives are:
Revenue Growth
Lower Investments

10. STEP #1: Set Your Business Objectives & KPIs
Once you know the KPIs you will immediately think of general metrics you should track:
Revenue (KPI) Customer Base (KPI)
Performance of Non-Paid
traffic sources (KPI)
Number of transactions
Average order value
Revenue
Number of free trials
CR from free trial to
customer
Revenue from organic
traffic
New organic visitors

11. STEP #2: Business Measurement Plan
But real business growth comes from a more in-depth
level of analysis.
This is the time to ask a lot of questions and find
additional metrics to track.

12. Scenario: E-commerce business with a lot of
traffic but low conversion rate.

13. STEP #2: Business Measurement Plan
Start by understanding the behavioral patterns of high-converting visitors VS
low-converting visitors.
Go in depth!
Look at micro actions - these are not
necessarily conversions but actions that can
lead to one.

14. STEP #2: Business Measurement Plan
● How is the pop-up for upsells performing?
● Are people subscribing to your newsletter? What other differences in behaviour
do you notices between those who subscribe and those who don’t?
● Are your top customers using filters more often?

16. STEP #3: Check That Our Data Is Accurate
Take data accuracy serios!
That is if you really want *CORECT data driven business decisions.

17. STEP #3: Check That Our Data Is Accurate
Already have an analytics account but plan on implementing more advanced tracking?
First run a health check on your account,
audit each setting and document it.

18. STEP #3: Check That Our Data Is Accurate
You’re starting from absolute scratch?
Then make sure you build a comprehensive list
of the setting you need to make to record data
correctly.

20. STEP #4: Enrich Your Data With Additional Information
There are so many integrations you could do to enrich your data and gain a better
understanding of your customer. Everything from:
● Integrating Search Console with GA to better understand organic traffic, to:
● Integrating offline data with GA to understand the full customer journey.
● Integrating CRM data with GA to create Remarketing Audiences.

21. STEP #4: Enrich Your Data With Additional Information
Choose the necessary ones for the business and document them!
If you are an agency or freelancer, do it so that your client understands
the value you can bring as well as what data they can access.

22. STEP #4: Enrich Your Data With Additional Information
If you are implementing for your own business, do it so that anyone in the
organization knows what type of data they can access and what needs to
be added in the future.

24. The technical plan
This will help ensure your tracking doesn’t
get broken by website structure changes.

25. STEP #5: Create A Technical Implementation Plan
It’s only normal for site structures to change!
But tracking is…
...more sensitive than you would imagine and highly
dependent on website changes.

26. STEP #5: Create A Technical Implementation Plan
It usually happens when there are more teams or
contractors involved, each wanting to update something.
We’ve had clients accidentally break tracking in so many ways, from changing
simple buttons to changing the subdomains.

27. STEP #5: Create A Technical Implementation Plan
And a good way to prevent that is to document what tags and triggers depend on,
what sort of changes could deteriorate tracking and then share that documentation
with everyone involved.

28. STEP #5: Create A Technical Implementation Plan
Let’s see how such a document would look!

29. EXAMPLE #1: GA Settings Variable
The GTM tracking implementation journey should start with your GA Settings
Variable.
This will be a part of any GA tag you create and will set the tone for how Google
Analytics will register data.

31. STEP #5: Create A Technical Implementation Plan
Maybe you’re wondering why you should document this?
Because businesses evolve, periodic full account audits are time-consuming and
it’s better to prevent issues than solve them!

32. STEP #5: Create A Technical Implementation Plan
Often times analytics account can get out of hand, and you spend hours trying to
figure out how things work and why it’s showing the data that it’s showing.
Save time spent answering questions for new analytics hires or other team
members and give them this overview of your tracking.

33. EXAMPLE #2: Events
● What does this event track, on what page, when is it triggered?
● Does the event impact metrics like bounce rate or session duration?
● What event exactly should I use to create a gold that tracks successful
submissions?

34. EXAMPLE #2: Events
Sometimes, those who implement tracking are not those who also analyze data.
So have questions like those ever occured from your adwords agency or anyone
else in the organization?
Naming conventions are almost never enough, that’s why we rely on this plan!

36. EXAMPLE #2: Events
You probably noticed the additional fields:
● Trigger Type
● Trigger Fires on
These help anyone understand what changes break tracking.

37. EXAMPLE #2: Events
The trigger type is telling us that the tag will only fire when the “Successful
registration” message is visible on the page.
So if someone introduces an invalid email address and an error message
appears, we know the tag won’t fire.

38. EXAMPLE #2: Events
This section is telling us that the trigger is dependent on the CSS selector (eg.
class) of the element and on the page path.
Meaning that if the URL changes or if someone decides to remove the message
and instead send users to a thank you page, this tag will break.

39. EXAMPLE #3: Goals
1. Macro Goals
These are usually the goals which are bringing
in revenue when fulfilled or are very important
milestones in the customer path.
These should be monitored across all reports.
Our recommendation is to divide your goals into 2 main types:

40. EXAMPLE #3: Goals
2. Micro Goals
The path to conversion is often complicated.
Along the path there are clear actions showing
their interest in the product or service.
These are called micro-goals, each playing an
important part in reaching the macro goal.
Users can be segmented out based on their
actions and approached differently.

42. EXAMPLE #4: Custom Metrics & Dimensions
1. Custom Metrics
Make it clear what custom metrics you are measuring and how.
For example, you can use them to determine how successful a pop-up form is.

43. EXAMPLE #4: Custom Metrics & Dimensions
2. Custom Dimensions
Register additional data about users, such as a unique identifier which will help
you unify data across sessions.
Be sure to mention their scope so anyone can understand with what is the data
associated (every hit, session, user or product).

45. Conclusion
Save yourself time and prevent mistakes by building a measurement plan!
And remember:
Creating an initial “Analytics Measurement Plan” is as important as making sure
that you are updating it every time someone makes a change, otherwise data
quality degrades as the business evolves.

46. *you will be taken to the original article from where you can download the template