Analytics and tracking is the plumbing underneath every marketing decision: the tags, settings and records that tell you which channel produced an enquiry or a sale. I set it up end to end for UK businesses, from the cookie banner through Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Tag Manager to the conversions Google Ads and Meta use to spend your budget, so that every system counts the same real customers.
What changes when your measurement works
Most businesses that advertise already have some tracking. The trouble is that each tool tells a different story, and nobody trusts any of them enough to move budget. Once the setup is sound, a few things become possible that were not before.
- You can compare channels on the same terms. An enquiry from a Google search ad, an Instagram Reel and an email newsletter is recorded the same way, with the same definition of what counts.
- The ad platforms learn from real outcomes. Automated bidding chases whatever you tell it is a conversion. If that signal is a page view or a spam form, the algorithm gets very good at buying page views and spam.
- Your figures hold up in a meeting. When a director asks why GA4, Google Ads and the CRM disagree, you have a documented answer instead of a shrug.
- You stay on the right side of UK privacy law. Tags wait for consent, the banner does what it says, and your cookie policy matches what the site actually sets.
Who this suits, and who it does not
This suits UK small and medium businesses that spend money on Google Ads, Facebook and Instagram ads or SEO and want to know what that money returns. It fits especially well when the website has grown by accretion: a theme here, a booking plugin there, three agencies each adding their own snippet over the years.
It is not the right starting point for everyone.
- You have no website traffic or campaigns yet. A basic GA4 property and a consent banner are enough for now; a full measurement plan can wait until there is something to measure.
- You need someone to run the ads as well. Start with ongoing Google Ads management or Facebook and Instagram ads management instead, because conversion tracking has to be set up as part of running the account anyway.
- You want the numbers to look better. Honest tracking often shows fewer conversions than the old setup did, because the duplicates and the junk disappear.
What the work covers
A measurement plan before any tag
I start on paper. Together we list the actions that matter to the business, such as a quote request, a booking, a purchase or a phone call, and decide which of them is a primary goal and which only shows interest. Each one gets a name, a trigger and the value it carries. This document is what stops tracking from drifting the next time someone edits the website.
Consent first: the banner and Consent Mode
Under PECR, a UK site needs a visitor’s agreement before it stores or reads non-essential cookies, and the ICO has said plainly that analytics and advertising cookies are not essential. I configure the banner so that analytics and ad tags load only after the visitor agrees, and connect it to Google’s Consent Mode so that Google receives the visitor’s choice. You can see how this site handles cookies in its cookie policy.
The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 relaxes the rule for some low-risk analytics, but the exemption comes with conditions, and advertising tags are not covered. Unless you have advice that the exemption is in force and your analytics qualifies, I build on consent first.
GA4 and Google Tag Manager
Every tag goes into one documented Google Tag Manager container, so changes no longer need a developer or a theme edit. In GA4 I mark the events from the measurement plan as key events, extend data retention beyond the two-month default, filter out internal and developer traffic, and list payment and booking providers as unwanted referrals so a customer returning from a card payment page is not credited to that payment page.
Conversion tracking in Google Ads and Meta
Google Ads and Meta each need their own conversion signal. I set up Google Ads conversions with enhanced conversions, and the Meta Pixel alongside the Conversions API, with a shared event ID so Meta counts each lead once rather than twice. The platforms will still disagree with GA4, for reasons that are explained in why GA4 and Facebook conversion numbers differ, but the gap becomes something you understand instead of something you argue about.
Leads that turn into sales
For a service business, a form submission is not yet revenue. Where your CRM, booking system or even a spreadsheet records which enquiries became paying work, I can feed those outcomes back as offline conversions, so Google and Meta learn which clicks led to customers. Phone enquiries matter too: plenty of UK buyers would still rather ring, and a click on a phone number is not the same as a call that connected.
Campaign tagging
Emails, social posts and partner links arrive in GA4 as a muddle unless they carry consistent UTM tags. I write a short naming convention for your team, and anyone can apply it with the free UTM link builder.
How I run a tracking project
- Audit what is there. I list every tag, pixel and cookie the site loads, check what fires before and after consent, and compare each platform’s conversion count with your own records for the same period.
- Agree the measurement plan. You sign off the list of conversions, their values and which ones the ad platforms should bid towards.
- Build in a test workspace. Changes go into Tag Manager unpublished, so the live site keeps working while I build.
- Test with real actions. I submit forms, make test bookings and refuse and accept cookies on desktop and mobile, then check that each system records exactly what happened.
- Publish and watch. After going live I compare the new figures against your records for the following weeks and fix anything that drifts.
- Hand over. You receive the documentation and a walkthrough, and everything stays in accounts you own.
Problems I see most often on UK sites
- A cookie banner that does not block anything. The banner appears, but GA4 and the Meta Pixel have already fired before the visitor clicks.
- Conversions counted twice. A GA4 key event imported into Google Ads and a native Google Ads tag both record the same enquiry, so cost per lead looks half what it is.
- Thank-you pages that count refreshes. Every reload or bookmark visit adds another lead.
- Forms that never reach a thank-you page. Many WordPress form plugins submit without loading a new page, so a tracking rule waiting for that page never fires.
- Booking and payment journeys that break the session. Third-party booking tools and payment pages hand the visitor back without any record of the ad they clicked.
- Old snippets nobody owns. Leftover Universal Analytics code, duplicate pixels and tags from a previous agency’s account still loading on every page.
If you would like to check your own setup before speaking to anyone, my guide on how to test whether your conversion tracking works walks through the same tests I use.
What you receive
- A written audit of the current setup, listing what was wrong and what was changed.
- The measurement plan: every conversion, its trigger, its value and where it is used.
- A cleaned, documented Tag Manager container with consent rules applied to each tag.
- GA4, Google Ads and Meta configured to the plan, with a test log showing each conversion recorded correctly.
- A UTM naming convention and a short guide to keeping tracking intact when the website changes.
What it costs
The fee is quoted in writing, in pounds, once I have looked at the site and the accounts involved. It depends mainly on how many platforms need connecting, how the forms, bookings and checkout are built, and whether lead outcomes from a CRM need to flow back to the ad platforms.
Next step
Tell me which ad platforms you use, where enquiries or sales are recorded, and which numbers you currently distrust. I can look at what your site loads before we speak and tell you what I would fix first. You can get in touch through the contact page.