Conversion tracking: the questions we get asked most

This is cheap to get right at the start and expensive to retrofit. The questions about conversion tracking that come up most often on our calls.

Data you do not trust is worse than no data, because it gets quoted anyway. The teams that stay on top of it are the ones who put it on a calendar rather than a wish list.

Do we need to care about this?

If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it. This is the sort of thing that compounds, quietly, in both directions. If two people in the business would answer this differently, that gap is the actual problem.

Can it wait until after launch?

Occasionally. More often the post-launch version costs several times the pre-launch one. There is a version of this that is over-engineered, and it is worth avoiding.

How do we know it is working?

Test that the tracking fires before relying on it. The reasoning matters more than the rule, because the rule has exceptions. The teams that stay on top of it are the ones who put it on a calendar rather than a wish list.

What this looks like day to day

Measurement is only useful when someone has agreed in advance what they would do differently. Three things worth confirming about conversion tracking before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

Worth checking on your own setup before it becomes someone else's problem to fix.