Analytics
Google Analytics Consultant Who Makes Your Reports Worth Believing Again
I audit, rebuild and document GA4 and Tag Manager setups so the figures in your reports match what actually happened in the business - enquiries, bookings and orders counted once, credited to the right source, and written down so the next person can maintain them.
- years in SEO
- 6+
- client websites worked on
- 60+
- person doing the work
- 1
Google Analytics consulting for when nobody believes the dashboard
Google Analytics consulting, the way I do it, means finding out why your GA4 numbers disagree with the business, fixing the setup that produces them and documenting it so it stays fixed. The pattern is familiar. GA4 reports one number of leads for last month, the CRM shows a smaller one, and Google Ads claims more than either. Organic sessions dipped, but nobody can say whether that is a tracking change, a consent banner update, a site release or real demand falling away. So the meeting ends with a shrug, and the next budget decision gets made on instinct.
In almost every case the reports are not the problem. The problem sits further upstream: key events that fire twice or never, a form plugin update that broke the trigger, a payment provider that hands the sale to a referral from the bank, internal traffic counted as customers. Dashboards get built on whatever the tool made easy to chart, and nobody checks the foundation.
I fix the plumbing first. That means GA4 configured for how your business actually works, key events defined against real commercial outcomes, Tag Manager tidy enough that the next person can maintain it, and consent behaviour tested so the gaps in your data are known and explained rather than mysterious. The reports you already use then start telling the truth, and the questions in that meeting get answers.
I work as an independent consultant, not an agency, so the person who audits your property is the person who fixes it and the person who explains the numbers to your board.
Key takeaways
- Most analytics problems are collection problems. The report is rarely wrong about the data it was given - the data it was given is wrong.
- Start with an audit unless the property is brand new or past saving. The audit decides whether you need a rebuild, a container cleanup or just a handful of fixes.
- A key event should map to something the business would pay for - a qualified enquiry, a booked call, an order - not a scroll or a page view.
- Consent behaviour, lead events and purchase events are not add-ons. They are checked in the audit and built into the setup and the container.
- Measurement sits underneath SEO. Without it you can see which pages get visits but not which ones bring in money.
What's included in my Google Analytics consulting
Every engagement is one of three services, but the same parts of the work turn up across all of them. These are the pieces you can expect, and which service each one belongs to.
A written measurement plan linking each business question to an event
Before any tag changes, I agree with whoever owns the numbers which decisions the data has to support and what counts as success. The plan maps each question to the events and key events that answer it, in language a finance director can read. It is the first deliverable of a GA4 setup and the yardstick an audit measures your current property against.
- Questions the data must answer
- Success defined per outcome
- Events and key events mapped to each question
GA4 property configuration recorded setting by setting, not left at defaults
Retention, internal traffic filters, unwanted referrals, cross-domain journeys and product links are where most quiet errors live. Each one is checked against how you sell and written into a settings record, so the next analyst knows what was chosen and why. An existing property is reviewed in a GA4 audit; a new or rebuilt one is configured that way from the start.
- Retention and identity settings
- Filters, referrals and cross-domain rules
- Google Ads and Search Console links
- A settings record you keep
Lead, booking and purchase events counted once, on the confirmed outcome
Lead and purchase tracking is part of the audit and the setup rather than a separate service. Forms count on a validated submission, bookings on the confirmation step, orders on every payment route you offer. Where GA4 and your CRM or store disagree, the reconciliation shows by how much and in which direction, so the remaining gap is explained instead of argued about.
- Key events reserved for outcomes the business values
- Purchase events checked per payment method
- Month-by-month reconciliation with your own records
A Tag Manager container with clear naming and a data layer contract
Containers that several agencies have worked in collect duplicate tags, dead pixels and triggers tied to button text. Google Tag Manager work inventories every item, rebuilds what stays on data layer events your developers agree to maintain, and applies a naming and folder convention so a second person can work in the container safely.
- Inventory and backup before changes
- Data layer specification
- Naming, folders and version notes
Consent behaviour tested with the cookie banner accepted and rejected
Consent settings are checked in every audit and applied tag by tag in container work. I test what fires before the visitor chooses, after they accept and after they reject, and report how large the resulting gap in your data appears to be. What your policy should permit is a decision for your legal adviser; my job is making the tags do what the policy says.
- Tag timing around the banner
- Consent settings on each tag
- Known gaps estimated and recorded
Documentation, change logs and a walkthrough you keep after I leave
Whatever the scope, you keep the paperwork: a tracking specification with event names, parameters, triggers and data layer pushes, an annotation log so future drops and spikes have a recorded cause, and a list of known gaps such as blockers or offline sales. A walkthrough, live or recorded, means you never need me to explain your own setup again.
- Tracking specification
- Annotation and change log
- Known gaps list
- Recorded or live walkthrough
Experience
Google Analytics from someone who has done it many times
You work with me from the first call to the last report. No account managers, no hand-offs to a junior team.
Book a free call- years in SEO
- 6+
- client websites worked on
- 60+
- documented case studies
- 35
Analytics services
Each one is a separate piece of work with its own deliverable.
GA4 Audit
An end-to-end check of an existing GA4 property: settings, events, key events, data quality, consent behaviour and attribution. You get every issue with its evidence and a fix list ranked by impact on decisions.
Read moreGA4 Setup
A new or rebuilt GA4 property designed from a written measurement plan, with events, key events, settings and product links configured and documented so the setup survives staff and agency changes.
Read moreGoogle Tag Manager
A Tag Manager container your team can read: consistent naming, folders, a documented data layer, sensible permissions and a cleanup of dead or duplicate tags left behind by past agencies and plugins.
Read moreHow the three services fit together
Each service has its own scope and deliverable, but they build on each other. This is the order I think about them in.
Diagnose: the GA4 audit
A GA4 audit checks an existing property end to end - settings, events, key events, consent behaviour, traffic sources and attribution - and ends in a ranked fix list. It is where most projects begin, and it decides whether either of the other two is needed.
Build: GA4 setup
GA4 setup is for a new site, a relaunch or a property past repair. It starts from a written measurement plan and covers lead, booking or purchase events, settings, product links and documentation.
Maintain: Google Tag Manager
Google Tag Manager work gives the tags a clean container, a data layer your developers understand and rules about who publishes what, so the fixes from the other two do not erode with the next release.
Symptoms I see, what usually causes them, and which service fixes it
If one of these sounds like your setup, the right-hand column is the service that owns the fix. Several symptoms at once usually means starting with the audit.
| What you notice | Usual cause | Service that fixes it |
|---|---|---|
| GA4 lead count does not match the CRM or inbox | Key event fires on page load or button click instead of a confirmed submission; duplicate tags | GA4 audit |
| Revenue in GA4 is well below your store's order report | Purchase event missing on some payment methods, thank-you page skipped, or consent blocking collection | GA4 audit to size the gap; GA4 setup if the purchase events need rebuilding |
| Large share of traffic labelled Unassigned or direct | Broken UTM conventions, redirects stripping parameters, cross-domain journeys not configured | GA4 audit |
| Payment providers or your own domain show up as referrers | Unwanted referrals and cross-domain measurement never set up | GA4 audit, usually fixed in the admin the same week |
| Explorations cannot compare this season with last year | Data retention left at the two-month default | GA4 audit; the fix only applies from then on |
| Nobody knows what half the tags in the container do | Years of agencies, plugins and one-off campaigns with no naming or ownership | Google Tag Manager |
| Tracking breaks after every site release | Triggers keyed to CSS classes or button text instead of data layer events | Google Tag Manager |
| Traffic dropped the week a cookie banner went live | Banner blocks tags outright, or consent signals are not passed to Google tags | GA4 audit to confirm; Google Tag Manager to correct the tag settings |
| Ad platforms bid towards junk leads | Spam entries, failed submissions and newsletter sign-ups all counted as key events | GA4 setup, with key events rebuilt on confirmed outcomes |
These are the common causes, not the only ones. I confirm the cause in the data and in the browser before recommending a fix.
Free review
Get a free Google Analytics review
Send me your site. Before the call I look at your rankings and pages, then tell you what I would fix first and what it is likely worth.
Which one to start with
If you already have GA4 and it is collecting something, start with the audit. It tells you whether the property is worth repairing, which fixes matter most and whether the container needs its own cleanup.
If the site is new, relaunching or the property is beyond repair, go straight to setup. A replatform or redesign is the cheapest moment to get measurement right, because the data layer can be specified alongside the build instead of retrofitted afterwards. If an SEO migration is also happening, the tracking plan should sit inside the migration project so nothing gets lost at launch.
If the main worry is the container itself - releases breaking tracking, pixels nobody can explain, too many people with publish rights - start with Tag Manager. A cleanup often turns up GA4 faults too, and those go on the same list.
If ad spend depends on the numbers, the audit still comes first, because the ad platforms are bidding against whatever key events you send them today. Lead and purchase events are the first things it checks.
A configured property versus a working one
Most setups I inherit were installed, not designed. The difference shows up the first time someone asks a hard question of the data.
Installed by plugin or default template
- Tag added, enhanced measurement switched on, job considered done
- Every form submission and button click marked as a key event
- Default two-month data retention never changed
- No internal traffic filter, no unwanted referral list
- Nothing written down, so every new hire re-learns the setup
- Gaps discovered only when someone questions a number
Designed from a measurement plan
- Events chosen to answer named business questions
- Key events reserved for enquiries, bookings and orders
- Retention, filters, referrals and cross-domain settings checked and recorded
- Naming conventions shared by GA4, Tag Manager and campaign links
- A tracking specification and change log your team can maintain
- Known gaps written down, so nobody mistakes them for falling demand
How an analytics engagement runs
The shape is the same whether the job is a single audit or a full rebuild.
- 1
Questions before tags
A call with whoever owns the numbers - marketing lead, founder, finance - to agree what decisions the data has to support and which outcomes count as success. This becomes the spine of the measurement plan.
- 2
Access and inventory
Read access to GA4, Tag Manager, Search Console, ad accounts and the CMS, plus an export from the CRM or store. I list every tag, event and integration currently live before touching anything.
- 3
Diagnosis in the data and the browser
Reports tell me where numbers look wrong; the browser, Tag Assistant and DebugView tell me why. Each issue is logged with its evidence, its impact and its fix.
- 4
Plan and specification
A measurement plan in plain language and a technical specification your developers can build from: events, parameters, data layer pushes, triggers and consent behaviour.
- 5
Build, test, publish
I implement in Tag Manager and GA4 myself, working in a separate workspace, and test every event before publishing. Code changes on your site go through your developers with a written brief.
- 6
Document and hand over
A walkthrough recorded or live, the specification updated to match what shipped, and an annotation log so future anomalies have an explanation on file.
Why measurement comes before SEO decisions
Most of my work is SEO, and analytics is the part of it that tells me whether the SEO is working. Search Console shows queries and clicks. GA4 shows what those visitors did next. The CRM shows which of them became customers. If any of those three links is broken, an organic strategy gets judged on traffic alone, and traffic is the easiest number in marketing to grow without making any money.
With measurement working, the questions get sharper. Which landing pages bring enquiries that close? Did the redesign lower the enquiry rate even though rankings held? Those are the questions an SEO audit and a content plan should be built around, and they cannot be answered from rankings reports.
Where SEO meets CRO
Count organic enquiries the same way you count paid ones
A common blind spot: Google Ads gets carefully configured conversions, while organic traffic is judged by sessions. When both channels report against the same key events and the same CRM outcomes, you can compare them fairly, see which organic pages deserve conversion work, and stop under-crediting search simply because it was measured more loosely.
Who this is for, and what I need from you
The best fit is a team that reports marketing performance upward - to a board, a founder, a franchise network or a client - and needs numbers that survive questioning. That includes service businesses running on enquiries, online stores reconciling revenue, and B2B firms with long sales cycles where the first visit and the signed contract are months apart.
I need admin or editor access to GA4 and publish rights in Tag Manager (or someone who can publish on request), read access to Search Console and the ad accounts, a contact on the development side for anything that touches site code, and an export from the CRM or store so I can check numbers against reality. If your industry handles sensitive data, such as health or financial information, tell me early - it changes what should be collected at all, and your legal adviser should approve the plan.
If you already work with me on technical SEO, basic tracking checks are part of that scope.
Growth from real projects
Google Analytics Consultant FAQs
What does a Google Analytics consultant actually do?
I check whether your GA4 and Tag Manager setup collects accurate data, fix what is broken, design tracking for the outcomes that matter to your business and document it so your team can maintain it. The job is part technical implementation, part translation between marketing questions and what the tools can measure.
Do I need a GA4 consultant if a plugin already installed GA4?
A plugin gets the tag on the page. It does not decide which actions count as key events, exclude your own staff, handle payment provider referrals, connect your ad accounts or reconcile figures with your CRM. If the numbers are used for budget decisions, those gaps are worth checking.
Why do GA4, Google Ads and my CRM all show different numbers?
They count different things in different ways. Ad platforms use their own attribution and click windows, GA4 depends on consent and browser collection, and the CRM records what reached your team. Some difference is normal. A large or unexplained gap usually points to a tracking fault worth fixing.
Can you work with our developers or agency rather than replacing them?
Yes, and that is the usual arrangement. I write the measurement plan and technical specification, handle the Tag Manager and GA4 side myself, and give developers a clear brief for any data layer or code changes. Agencies running ads keep running them; they just get better signals to optimise against.
Will you tell us whether our tracking is legally compliant?
No. I explain what your tags collect, when they fire and how they respond to consent choices, and I can configure them to match a policy you have agreed. Whether that policy meets GDPR, PECR or other rules in your market is a question for your legal adviser.
Find out how far your Google Analytics numbers can be trusted
Book a free 30-minute call and share view access to GA4 beforehand. I will look at the property first, tell you the three issues most likely to be distorting your reports, and say plainly whether you need an audit, a rebuild, a container cleanup or just a couple of fixes.