Google Analytics setup audit

Customize Google Analytics to improve the ROI of digital marketing for your business and migrate to GA4

How will this Google Analytics audit template help me and my business?

Many companies have Google Analytics Javascript tags set up to track visitors to their websites, but in our experience, Analytics is often not set up adequately.

To get the most from Analytics - so you can adopt a data-driven approach to review and improve your digital marketing activity - it should be customized to your business. Customization is needed to set up Analytics features like goals, funnels, events and custom dimensions to help the business regularly review and improve its online marketing. Plus insight available from benchmarking reports, demographics and Google Signals may be missed if you don't know what options are available.

2022 update: This template has now been fully updated to help you migrate to Google Analytics 4 (GA4), since Google has announced that from July 2023, data, and reports from the previous version of Google Analytics, (Universal Analytics, UA) will no longer be available. If you’re using this guide to help make the change to GA4 tagging, we recommend following Google’s GA4 Migration guide.

This resource can be used as a migration checklist/health check audit for moving to Google Analytics 4. As well as guidance from Smart Insights, it includes lots of useful links to further detailed documentation from Google to help you with your audit. It can also be used as a checklist for end users to learn more about different reporting features in GA4.

This popular template is indispensable if you're serious about the accuracy of your Analytics and applying data-driven marketing to improve results for your business:

Reviews key Analytics configuration options - check what you’re missing and what you need to change for migrating to GA4
Allows you to produce a report showing improvements needed for report customization
Originally written by Dr. Dave Chaffey, a digital strategist who has the Google Analytics Individual Qualification. Previous iterations were updated by Jill Quick a specialist Google Analytics trainer and consultant. In this latest edition, Dave has provided updated advice in line with the migration to Google Analytics 4 in July 2023.

Who is this template for?

Marketing managers who need to set up their Google Analytics to review key metrics and allocate resources accordingly
Small business owners who manage their own Google Analytics
E-commerce marketers looking to make better use of Google Analytics to get insights into customer journeys
Agency team members or consultants responsible for auditing and managing Google Analytics for their clients' websites
All marketers looking to understand Google's new Analytics - GA4 - and how to implement it in their business

What does the template include?

This is an unbranded template which you can amend for your company or clients to review/report on Google Analytics customizations.

It is a 21-page Word template with editable tables to help you with your audit. To simplify configuration, the template is structured in these sections with shorter sections at the beginning:

Exec summary. For review and approval of the key customizations.
1.0 Objectives and goals. A key part of customization that is missed. Includes macro and micro goals applied to our RACE Planning Framework.
2.0 Admin Audit. A checklist structured by Account, Property and View (UA only).
3.0 Additional customizations. More customizations that are made outside the Admin areas for Account and Property settings.

Resource Details

Authors: Dr. Dave Chaffey, previous versions updated by Digital Marketing consultant Jill Quick
Editor: Amelia Mayes, Smart Insights
Format: 21-page Word template with advice and editable tables to help you with your audit.
Related content:
- Google Analytics for E-commerce – more detailed advice on Google Analytics customization.
- Website performance reporting template – recommends insight that should be included in a monthly PowerPoint report for digital marketing.
- Google Analytics Learning Path – use Google Analytic’s free tools to review the effectiveness of your website to improve ROI with marketing spend and customer experience with your business.

About the authors

Dr. Dave Chaffey

Dave is co-founder of Smart Insights and creator of the Smart Insights RACE planning framework. For his full profile, or to connect on LinkedIn or other social networks, see the About Dave Chaffey profile page on Smart Insights. Dave is author of 5 bestselling books on digital marketing including Digital Marketing Excellence and Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. In 2004 he was recognized by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as one of 50 marketing ‘gurus’ worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing.

Jill Quick

Jill Quick, a digital marketing trainer and co-founder of The Coloring in Department. A candid and experiences marketer who loves to teach you not just how to ‘get’ digital marketing in theory, but how to actually DO it.