Marketing Analytics & Reporting

Probably partially, yes. GA4 migration from Universal Analytics in 2023-2024 happened under time pressure for many businesses, and conversions, custom dimensions, and enhanced ecommerce setup were often rebuilt incompletely. We typically find that recommended events fire but business-critical conversions are missing, revenue values aren't passed to conversions, attribution models are still on default last-click, and historical Universal Analytics context wasn't archived properly. Our analytics audits surface these gaps with specific findings rather than vague 'GA4 looks fine' assessments.

For any meaningful paid advertising, yes. iOS 14.5 and Safari's ITP have degraded client-side conversion signal by 30-50% on many accounts. Server-side tracking via GTM Server-Side combined with Conversions API across Meta, Google, LinkedIn, and TikTok restores measurement accuracy that paid algorithms depend on for optimisation. The setup pays for itself within weeks on accounts of any meaningful spend. For organic-only businesses or very small paid programmes, the case is weaker — we are honest about which side your account falls on during discovery.

Depends on conversion volume and sales cycle. Data-driven attribution (GA4's default for accounts with sufficient volume) is typically the right answer for high-volume accounts because it learns the actual contribution patterns from your data. For lower-volume accounts where data-driven isn't reliable, position-based or time-decay models with documented reasoning are typically appropriate. Last-click is almost never the right answer despite being the default on most ad platforms — it systematically over-credits closers and under-credits the awareness channels that drove the buyer there.

Yes. Custom Looker Studio dashboards are part of every analytics engagement — channel performance, funnel conversion, blended attribution, ROAS by campaign, content performance, cohort analysis, customer lifecycle reporting, and any other views your team needs for decisions. Dashboards are designed around the questions your team actually asks rather than templated to look impressive in the agency portfolio.

GA4 is Google's primary web analytics platform — free, deeply integrated with Google Ads, but with significant differences from Universal Analytics that confuse users still expecting Universal patterns. Alternative or complementary tools include Mixpanel and Amplitude (better for product analytics and SaaS user behaviour), Heap (auto-capture analytics), PostHog (open-source product analytics), and Adobe Analytics (enterprise). For most marketing analytics needs GA4 is the appropriate primary platform; for product analytics on SaaS or apps, dedicated tools usually pay off alongside.

Cookie consent banners (CookieYes, OneTrust, Cookiebot, or custom) integrated with Google Consent Mode v2 so tracking adjusts based on user consent — non-consenting users measured via privacy-preserving signals rather than blocked entirely. Server-side tracking helps here because much of the data flow can be configured to respect consent properly. We are explicit during setup about what's tracked under what consent state, and ensure the implementation meets ICO guidance for UK businesses.

Yes. Universal Analytics sunset has left many accounts with broken GA4 implementations. Common fixes include rebuilding conversion goals that didn't migrate properly, adding enhanced ecommerce that was missed, configuring custom dimensions for important segmentation, fixing cross-domain tracking, and properly handling internal traffic. We are explicit about what's salvageable from existing setup versus what requires rebuilding.

Yes — and arguably more than businesses running mostly organic. Paid ads require accurate conversion measurement for the platform algorithms to optimise effectively. Conversion tracking and attribution accuracy directly determine paid ROAS — broken tracking means broken bidding, which means wasted spend. Server-side conversion APIs for Meta, Google, LinkedIn, and TikTok are essentially required infrastructure for any meaningful paid advertising investment.

Analytics is the infrastructure — tracking implementation, data collection, modelling, and the source-of-truth dashboards. Reporting is the layer that turns data into decisions — written analysis explaining what changed and why, recommendations for what to test next, and strategic context for budget reallocation. Most agencies do reporting badly because they don't have analytics done well underneath; you can't analyse honestly when the data is broken. We do both layers properly.