Free Resource
GA4 & Consent Mode v2 Audit Checklist
A practical, field-tested checklist to verify your Google Analytics 4 setup, GTM hygiene, Consent Mode v2 wiring, conversion tracking, and QA — so you can actually trust the numbers behind your marketing decisions.
Read it free below — or get the printable, fillable PDFto work through with your team, plus a bonus section the page doesn't have: the 8 failures I see most, and the fix for each.
GA4 configuration
The foundation. If these aren't right, every report downstream is questionable.
- Confirm a single GA4 property and data stream per site — no duplicate properties collecting the same hits.
- Set the correct reporting time zone and currency in property settings.
- Enable Enhanced Measurement, then review which auto-events you actually want (scrolls and outbound clicks can be noisy).
- Configure internal traffic filters and exclude your own IP / staging traffic.
- Add unwanted referral exclusions (payment gateways, your own subdomains) so sessions aren't fragmented.
- Extend data retention to 14 months for exploration reports where your policy allows.
- Confirm Google Signals is configured intentionally, with consent implications understood.
- Mark the right events as Key Events (conversions) — and only the ones that matter.
Google Tag Manager hygiene
A clean container is easier to debug, audit, and hand over. Tag sprawl is where tracking quietly breaks.
- Use a single, documented data layer naming convention across the site.
- Push a structured dataLayer event for every meaningful interaction rather than scraping the DOM.
- Fire the GA4 Configuration tag once, as early as possible, on All Pages.
- Remove orphaned tags, paused tags, and duplicate triggers left over from past work.
- Name tags, triggers, and variables consistently (e.g. GA4 - Event - Form Submit).
- Version every publish with a clear description so changes are traceable.
- Check that no hardcoded analytics snippets remain in the theme alongside GTM (double-counting).
- Restrict publish permissions and keep a workspace-per-change workflow for larger teams.
Consent Mode v2 & Cookiebot
Consent Mode v2 is required to keep modeling conversions for Google Ads in the EEA. Get the wiring and ordering right.
- Implement Consent Mode v2 with all four signals: ad_storage, analytics_storage, ad_user_data, ad_personalization.
- Set safe defaults to denied before any consent decision, with wait_for_update configured.
- Ensure the consent default loads before GTM and before any Google tags fire.
- Confirm Cookiebot (or your CMP) updates consent states on Accept / Reject / category change.
- Verify denied state still sends cookieless pings (gcs=G100) so conversion modeling works.
- Block non-Google marketing pixels (Meta, LinkedIn) until consent is granted, via CMP categories or GTM triggers.
- Test that revisiting users have their stored consent re-applied on the next page load.
- Document the consent banner's categories and what each one gates.
Conversion & ads tracking
Where measurement meets money. Misattributed or missing conversions distort every optimisation decision.
- Track each primary conversion as a clean, named GA4 event with consistent parameters.
- Import GA4 Key Events into Google Ads, or use the Google Ads conversion tag — but not both for the same action.
- Pass value and currency on revenue-generating events for ROAS reporting.
- Confirm Meta and LinkedIn conversion events fire only post-consent and match the GA4 definitions.
- Set up enhanced conversions where appropriate, with hashed first-party data.
- De-duplicate web conversions across platforms (event IDs / matching keys).
- Verify cross-domain tracking if the funnel spans multiple domains.
QA & validation
Trust is earned by testing. Validate in real conditions before you rely on a single report.
- Walk the full funnel in GTM Preview mode and confirm each tag fires once, with the right data.
- Use GA4 DebugView to verify events, parameters, and user properties land correctly.
- Check the Realtime report while testing key actions end to end.
- Test consent flows: accept, reject, and partial consent — confirm tags behave for each.
- Validate on mobile and at least one secondary browser, not just desktop Chrome.
- Compare GA4 conversion counts against the source-of-truth (CRM, payment provider) for a sane match.
- Re-audit after any site, theme, or CMP change — tracking breaks silently.
Next Step
Not sure if your tracking holds up?
Book a free 30-minute call and I'll walk through your current GA4 and consent setup, flag the biggest gaps, and tell you exactly what to fix first.