Marketing Analytics
A standalone implementation guide for instrumenting, validating, and analyzing marketing measurement on the modern Google stack (GA4 + Google Tag Manager + server-side tagging + BigQuery), plus the UTM, attribution, and governance discipline that keeps the data trustworthy. For paid-channel optimization see the paid-ads skill; for lifecycle/email metrics see email-sequence; for activation/retention metrics see product-led-growth.
2026 context. GA4 is the only Google Analytics product (Universal Analytics was shut off July 2023). Three things below changed recently and trip people up: (1) GA4 retired first-click/linear/time-decay/position-based attribution in Nov 2023, and an Apr 2026 restructure pushed reporting further toward data-driven and changed default windows; (2) Consent Mode v2 (four signals) is required for EEA traffic via a Google-certified CMP, and from June 15 2026 the GA4 Google Signals toggle no longer governs Google Ads data; Consent Mode (
ad_storage) becomes the authority for what reaches Ads; (3) data-driven attribution silently falls back to last-click below roughly 400 conversions for a given key event (within the lookback window), not the old ~1,000 thinking. The attribution models page (https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/10596866) documents the current model list; the DDA data requirements and 2026 changes are documented separately in Analytics Help, so confirm the current threshold there before quoting it to a client.
Reference guide
Read only the references needed for the current request:
- 1. GA4 Setup: references/1-ga4-setup.md
- 2. Ecommerce & gtag/dataLayer payloads: references/2-ecommerce-gtag-datalayer-payloads.md
- 3. Google Tag Manager (web) implementation: references/3-google-tag-manager-web-implementation.md
- 4. Consent Mode v2 (required for EEA, and best practice everywhere): references/4-consent-mode-v2-required-for-eea-and-best-practice-everywhere.md
- 5. Server-side tagging & Measurement Protocol: references/5-server-side-tagging-measurement-protocol.md
- 6. BigQuery export — your unsampled source of truth: references/6-bigquery-export-your-unsampled-source-of-truth.md
- 7. UTM strategy: references/7-utm-strategy.md
- 8. Attribution (GA4, 2026): references/8-attribution-ga4-2026.md
- 9. KPI dashboards: references/9-kpi-dashboards.md
- 10. Measurement governance (keep the data trustworthy): references/10-measurement-governance-keep-the-data-trustworthy.md
- 11. QA / debug checklist (run before declaring tracking "live"): references/11-qa-debug-checklist-run-before-declaring-tracking-live.md
- Cross-references: references/cross-references.md