Google Analytics is a marketer's source of support for assessing performance and creating decisions depending on data from webpage or app usage. According to W3Techs, 52.9% of global websites on the internet utilize GA. It provides detailed information on various topics, including:
The number of visitors to your website
The sources of traffic toward your webpage
The way users engage with your website
Your rate of conversion
If you've been running Google Analytics for a long and notice unexpected statistics, you may worry that it's not working. By lacking a suitable setup, you will not be able to collect the necessary data. So, it is crucial to verifying everything works properly, whether announcing a new website, rebuilding an existing site, or integrating multiple websites. This guide will provide you with modes for determining if Google Analytics is working.
1. Run your tracking on Google Analytics
Checking the tracking status in Google Analytics via the Admin panel is among the effortless techniques to verify if Google Analytics is operational.
You can do so by following the given steps:
Access Google Analytics while logged in, then go to the page you wish to examine.
At the lower left corner of the display, select "Admin."
Select "Tracking Info" in the second column on the admin screen.
Then select "Tracking Code" to view the tracking activity and a figure of the number of active visitors currently on your website.
2. View real-time web traffic stats
It might require up to 24 to 48 hours for Google Analytics to display your web traffic in the reports after you initially set it up. Nevertheless, if you access the real-time information, you may immediately determine if Analytics is operating well or not. It's the simplest and fastest approach for Google Analytics to get properly configured.
Access your Google Analytics 4 property and proceed to Reports » Real-time to get your real-time statistics. Now that Google Analytics is tracking your visits, you can observe any active users on your website.
3. Chrome's GTM/GA debug tool to detect duplicate tracking code
An error that marketers frequently make is unintentionally inserting tracking code on the website several times. Because there is typically a lack of documentation on the existing old analytical requirements, it often occurs during CMS (content management system) transfers, domain consolidations, or redesigns.
The GA and GTM tags are easily visible thanks to the GTM/GA debug Chrome browser tool. As you verify this on your website, confirm that each time you visit a page, just one pageview from a single GA account triggers. You will know that you are at minimum double counting analytics data and probably messing up all the other metrics you are monitoring in GA when you see several pageviews fire whenever you load a single page.
4. Tag manager
The most popular option is Google Tag Manager, a Chrome extension and a free tool for all webmasters.
Another problem that marketers frequently encounter is when they combine the use of a tag management platform with manually adding scripts to specific web pages or portions. One of the main advantages of having a tag manager is how you can quickly include tracking scripts if your track and trace coding gets deployed on each page of the website. Additionally, they enable marketers to control the overall firing of all their tracking scripts from a single location.
How to access:
After logging into Google Tag Manager, select Preview
Enter the URL of the website page you want to evaluate.
Google can also track browsing and clicks in this "preview" setting.
5. Examine the source code
You may also verify if a page is utilizing Google Analytics without needing to sign in to Google Analytics. Unless you don't have access to Google Analytics for your firm's site, this option is helpful. You may also use these to see if a website you don't own is using Google Analytics.
To do so using Google Chrome:
Browse the website you wish to examine and then right-click on it.
Choosing 'View Page Source' will redirect you to the page's source code.
Searching for 'gtag.js,' 'analytics.js,' and 'ga.js' in the source code will show if the tracking code is directly on the webpage.
However, you may inspect for it using browser-based debugging tools if the tracking code is not directly on the website and instead got access from another source.
Final Thought
Your best chance as a marketer is to become familiar with Chrome developer tools and tag management systems so that you may audit tracking codes in accordance with the objectives of your company.