Analytics setup: what to get right first

It is rarely the thing that gets a project approved, and often the thing that decides how it goes. If you only fix one thing about analytics setup this quarter, make it the first item below.

Measurement is only useful when someone has agreed in advance what they would do differently. The version that survives contact with a real deadline is the simple one.

Start here

Data you do not trust is worse than none. Getting it slightly wrong is survivable. Ignoring it entirely is not. Doing this properly once is usually cheaper than doing it approximately three times.

Then this

Filter internal traffic from day one. The reasoning matters more than the rule, because the rule has exceptions. It rarely shows up as a line item, which is exactly why it slips.

Eventually

Decide what you will act on before you track it. The reasoning matters more than the rule, because the rule has exceptions. Most teams find the first pass takes an afternoon and the maintenance takes minutes a month.

The short version

Data you do not trust is worse than no data, because it gets quoted anyway. Three things worth confirming about analytics setup before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Decide what you will act on before you track it — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If you are not sure where your systems currently stand on this, it takes us about an hour to find out.