Things consultants won’t say out loud.
Notes from inside real engagements — what tracking actually breaks, where attribution lies, and how to stop paying for dashboard theater.
- Compliance · Analytics honesty
The GDPR-compliant analytics checklist (verified, not assumed)
Six checks that separate actual compliance from a banner and a feeling. Each one is verifiable in an afternoon, and most sites fail at least two.
- Server-side · Tracking
Server-side tracking on Shopify: what's real, what's marketing
Shopify stores hear they need server-side tracking more than anyone, and the platform constrains how it can be built. What the native channel apps already do, what sGTM adds, and when the math works.
- Attribution · Analytics honesty · Strategy
Last-click is lying to you: attribution models, honestly
Every attribution model is a credit-distribution formula, not a truth machine. What each model rewards, what none of them can see, and what to use instead for real budget calls.
- Attribution · Strategy
Marketing attribution without third-party cookies
Cross-site journey tracking is not coming back. What attribution looks like built on your own data: UTMs done properly, conversion APIs, MMM, and real experiments.
- Strategy
What a custom dashboard actually costs (three lines, not one)
The build quote is the smallest of the three cost lines. Data plumbing that breaks with every API change, and the maintenance nobody budgets: the full price of a custom dashboard, from someone who builds them.
- Attribution · Server-side · Tracking
Facebook CAPI vs pixel: do you need both?
Meta built them to run together, not compete. What each actually does, how deduplication keeps counts honest, and when CAPI is worth the plumbing.
- Strategy
Is Looker Studio enough? Usually yes, and here are the breakpoints
Free, shareable, and good enough for most businesses most of the time. The four real breakpoints where Looker Studio stops being the answer, and the upgrade everyone buys too early.
- Attribution · GA4 · Analytics honesty
How to reconcile GA4, Shopify and Facebook numbers
Stop forcing three tools to agree; they never will. The working method: one financial truth, measured offsets, and alarms on change. A repeatable monthly routine.
- Server-side · Tracking · Analytics honesty
Does server-side tracking beat ad blockers and ITP?
Partly, and the partly matters. What server-side actually recovers from blockers and Safari's ITP, what it never will, and the line it must not cross.
- Server-side · Strategy
Server-side tracking cost: the honest breakdown
Setup, hosting, and the maintenance line nobody budgets. What server-side tracking actually costs to run, and the break-even math from someone who sells it.
- Server-side · Tracking
Server-side GTM: what it is and when the math works
A tag container on your own server, between the browser and the ad platforms. What that actually changes, what it costs to run, and who should bother.
- Attribution · Analytics honesty
Why your ad platforms over-report conversions
Meta, Google, and TikTok each claim conversions your store never saw twice. The four mechanisms behind platform inflation, and how to read the numbers anyway.
- Analytics honesty · Strategy
The 5 data lies most businesses believe
Your numbers are accurate, the platforms report honestly, attribution shows causes. Five comfortable beliefs that quietly misdirect budgets, and what to believe instead.
- Strategy
Does your business need a data warehouse? Three triggers, honestly
Mostly no. A warehouse is a commitment to modeling and ownership, not a subscription. The three triggers that genuinely justify one, and the cheap moves that usually win first.
- GA4 · Tracking
GA4 on single-page apps: why your pageviews double (or vanish)
SPAs don't reload pages, so page tracking either fires twice or not at all, depending on which two defaults you left on. The one-source-of-truth rule that makes SPA tracking boring.
- Tracking · Strategy
GTM vs hardcoded tracking: when to use which
Tag manager or code? The honest decision rules: what belongs in GTM, what belongs in the codebase, and the hybrid split that most mature setups land on.
- GA4 · Strategy · Compliance
How to migrate from GA4 to Matomo without losing your history
You mostly cannot take GA4 history with you, so a good migration preserves continuity instead: parallel running, definition mapping, and a real archive. The sequence that works.
- Strategy · Compliance
Self-hosted vs cloud Matomo: which to pick, honestly
The license is free; the MySQL tuning is not. Who should actually self-host Matomo, who should pay for cloud, and the total-cost math both camps avoid.
- Compliance · GA4 · Tracking
Consent Mode v2 explained, and what it does to your data
What Consent Mode v2 actually is, basic vs advanced mode, what Google's modeling fills in, and the honest account of what your reports lose when visitors decline.
- GA4 · Strategy
GA4 data retention: your history is expiring on a default setting
GA4 keeps event-level data for two months unless someone changed one dropdown. What actually expires, what survives, the 14-month ceiling, and when BigQuery becomes the real answer.
- GA4 · Tracking
GA4 duplicate transactions: find the leak, then fix that one
GA4 revenue higher than your shop's? Four mechanisms create duplicate purchases: thank-you page refreshes, double tags, missing transaction IDs, and SPA re-fires. How to prove which one is yours.
- Tracking · GA4
"Configured" isn't "firing": why the GTM preview lies
Green checkmarks in GTM preview prove the tag can fire for you, in ideal conditions. Your customers browse under different rules. Why preview passes and production fails.
- Compliance · Tracking
Is your consent banner actually blocking anything? How to test
The banner dashboard says compliant. The network tab decides. A fifteen-minute test anyone can run, no tools required, plus the four failure patterns it exposes.
- Analytics honesty · GA4
Is 100% data accuracy possible? What "close enough" means
No, and anyone promising it is selling something. What accuracy is actually achievable, which decisions each level supports, and how to know your own error margin.
- Analytics honesty · Tracking · Strategy
The 60-minute analytics self-audit (before you pay anyone)
Five checks, one hour, no consultant. Find out whether your analytics can be trusted before you spend money on ads, dashboards, or people like me. Most setups fail check three.
- Strategy
Build vs buy: when a custom dashboard beats SaaS BI
Per-seat BI licenses vs a custom reporting layer: the actual decision math, the costs both sides hide, and the hybrid that wins more often than either extreme.
- Compliance · Tracking
GDPR analytics: what your consent banner isn't blocking
Your consent banner blocks the tags its plugin knows about. The rest fire anyway. How to catch them yourself in fifteen minutes with a network tab.
- Server-side · Tracking
Do you actually need server-side tracking?
Server-side tracking recovers real data and costs real money. The honest decision math, from someone who sells it and still talks people out of it.
- GA4 · Analytics honesty
GA4 thresholding: the rows Google hides from you, and why
GA4 quietly removes rows from your reports to protect user privacy. Fine, until you make decisions on tables you didn't know were incomplete. What thresholding is, how to spot it, and what to do.
- GA4 · Tracking
GA4 e-commerce tracking: the small spec that survives redesigns
Four events, one items array, values from the backend, and a verification habit. The e-commerce tracking spec I install for clients, and the five ways I see it built wrong.
- GA4 · Tracking
A sane GA4 event naming convention you can steal
snake_case, verb first, parameters documented, convention enforced in review. The naming rules I use on client properties, with the reasoning, so you can adopt them in an afternoon.
- GA4 · Tracking
How to check if your GA4 tracking actually works
GTM preview is a rehearsal, not proof. The three-layer verification I run on every audit: network requests, DebugView, and reconciling against your real order count.
- Compliance · GA4 · Analytics honesty
Is Google Analytics illegal in the EU? What the rulings mean
It was ruled unlawful in 2022, then the ground shifted in 2023. Where GA4's EU legality actually stands, what changed, and what risk you still carry.
- Attribution · Tracking
Mobile app attribution after iOS ATT: what still works
Apple ended user-level ad attribution on iOS for everyone who declines tracking, which is most people. What actually still works, and what is sold as working.
- Tracking · Strategy
How to track a SaaS funnel that predicts revenue
Most SaaS funnels stop measuring at signup, right where revenue starts. How to instrument visit to activation to renewal as one journey, with a real activation metric.
- Strategy
When a custom CRM is worth it (and when it's a trap)
Custom CRMs look simple and are not. The three-condition bar I apply before building one, the trap math, and the extend-first path most companies should take.
- Strategy · Analytics honesty
Why your "single source of truth" dashboard keeps lying
The dashboard did not fix the disagreement, it centralized it. Why truth layers lie: colliding definitions, silent joins, and time zone crimes. And the fix that works.
- Strategy · Tracking
Web analytics vs product analytics: which do you need?
One tracks how people arrive, the other tracks whether they stay. Which one your business actually needs first, and the signs you picked the wrong one.
- Attribution · GA4
Why GA4, Facebook and your store disagree on purchases
Facebook says 212, GA4 says 167, the store says 189. Usually nothing is broken: they count different things. What each number means and which one to report.