The talks was presented in Thessaloniki's digital analytics meetup and describes how someone can start tracking a corporate or even a smaller website using web analytics platforms. It's an introductory talk which focuses mainly on the processes someone must follow to ensure high quality results and satisfy both business/marketing teams and the development team, which will be part of the project.

1. Panagiotis Tzamtzis
Digital Analytics Meetup, Thessaloniki #2
20 Sep 2017
A technical introduction
to website tracking

2.  Keep track on website visitors
 Track content consumption
 Measure conversions
 Evaluate campaigns
 Provide personalized content & ads
 Track website issues / bugs
What is website tracking?

3. Typical roadmap
Go
live
Familiarize
yourself with
website
Audit current
implementation
Collect data
requirements
Implement
datalayer & TMS
Deploy tracking &
marketing tools
QA & sign off
Continuous
QA & updates
Day
1

4. Create a sitemap of the content
 Identify user journeys
 Identify conversion events
 Look for subdomains
 Use a crawler to get all URLs
 Focus on page templates
Familiarize yourself with website

5. Take stock of existing tags
 Get full list of tools (Ghostery, Tag
inspector, Charles, Web dev tools)
 Identify type of information captured
each tool
 Look for issues (404 errors, invalid
certificates)
Audit current implementation (1)

6. Create tag audit report
 Domain names audited
 Tools availability across website
 Tools by page template/section
 Open issues
 List piggybacked tools / PII issues
 Data dependencies for each tool
 Executive summary
Audit current implementation (2)

7. Enrich sitemap with data
 Agree on reporting structure
 List of data needed for each page
 Determine source of data and
availability
 Agree on data format
Collect data requirements

8. Implement datalayer and TMS
Technical guidelines and
implementation
 Prepare tracking framework
 Guidelines for Dev team
 Data layer documentation
 Implementation of TMS and
datalayer
 Testing

9. Deploy tracking and marketing tools
Setup marketing tools
 Gather tag source code and
deployment rules
 Create page rules in TMS
 Implement tags in TMS
 Test implementation / Validate with
stakeholders
 Documentation

10.  Stakeholders to sign-off using collected test data
 Marketing team to complete QA process
 Look for critical issues during go-live
 Closely monitor traffic data after go-live
 Compare traffic data (using different tools / previous setup)
QA & Sign off

11.  Keep tracking up-to-date with new website implementations
 Monitor for bugs & inconsistencies
 Adjust according to updated business requirements
 Enrich website tracking with more data
 Automate QA process / Unit testing
Continuous QA & updates

12. Blog of the month
http://www.analyticshour.io/

13. Analytics fun of the month
https://youtu.be/nCeJITfEhSk