A complete checklist to ensure your website captures accurate data, tracks meaningful user interactions, and delivers the insights your marketing team needs to drive growth.
Bad analytics is worse than no analytics, because it produces confident wrong decisions. Define what you need to know first. Then instrument only that, and verify every event before you trust a report.
Decide what to measure
- Write down the three questions the business needs the data to answer.
- Define the primary conversion. One per site, not five.
- Define the secondary conversions that show intent: downloads, pricing views, calls.
- Assign a value to each conversion, even a rough one. Unvalued conversions are unrankable.
- Agree which team reviews the numbers, and how often.
Install the foundations
- Install the analytics platform on every page, including the 404 and thank-you pages.
- Confirm the tracking code fires once. Duplicate tags halve your session counts.
- Set up a tag manager container and keep tags out of the page template.
- Configure cross-domain tracking if the checkout or booking lives elsewhere.
- Filter internal and agency traffic out of the reporting view.
- Set the correct time zone, currency and data retention period.
Track the events that matter
- Track every form submission as a distinct event, named after the form.
- Track outbound clicks to phone numbers and email addresses.
- Track file downloads.
- Track clicks on the primary call to action, per page.
- Track meaningful scroll depth on long pages, not on every page.
- Track internal search terms. They tell you what the navigation fails to answer.
- Track video plays and completion where video carries the pitch.
Verify the data
- Test every event in preview or debug mode before publishing.
- Submit a real test conversion end to end and confirm it appears in the report.
- Confirm the event fires once per action, not on every page load.
- Confirm the thank-you page is not counted twice on refresh.
- Reconcile analytics conversions against the CRM record count for one week.
- Document every event: name, trigger, and what it means.
Consent and privacy
- Install a consent banner that blocks tracking until the visitor agrees.
- Confirm no non-essential cookie is set before consent.
- Confirm the analytics platform respects the consent signal.
- Publish a cookie policy that lists what you set and why.
- Anonymise IP addresses where the law requires it.
- Confirm the data processing agreement with each vendor is in place.
Report and act
- Build one dashboard that answers the three questions you wrote down first.
- Report conversion rate by channel and by landing page, not only in total.
- Set up an alert for a sudden drop in conversions or traffic.
- Review the funnel monthly and pick one step to improve.
- Record every change you make to the site, so you can explain a change in the data.