Your GA4 tracking is valid for around 3 months

💀 ☠ 💥 Your GA4 tracking is usually valid for around 3 months.

While there is no inherent expiration date for GA4/GTM tracking, the optimal tracking performance usually starts declining after about 3 months.

This is primarily due to the dynamic nature of websites rather than a limitation of GA4/GTM itself.

The assumption that GA4/GTM is a "set it and forget it" type of tracking is a common misconception.

Websites constantly evolve, which can wreak havoc on your GA4/GTM setup.

For example:

>> Code changes might accidentally remove or alter the data your tags need, leading to incomplete or inaccurate data collection.

>> CSS selectors target specific elements on your webpage where tags fire.

If the website's code changes those elements' structure or class names, your selectors might no longer point to the right place, causing tags to fire incorrectly or not at all.

>> Website updates might inadvertently alter the behaviour you designed the trigger for, making it fire at the wrong time or not fire at all.

>> Hardcoded data layers are particularly vulnerable to website updates.

Since hardcoded data layers are directly written into the website's code, any changes to that code can potentially break or even delete them entirely.

This is especially risky if multiple developers work on a website and data layer modifications aren't well-coordinated.

So what you can do then?

You need to audit all the tags, triggers and variables in your GTM container at least once every quarter and not just first wait for a big anomaly to show up in your reports (like a rise in (not set) issues) before taking any action.

The objective of tag auditing is to understand how tags, triggers, and variables are currently used on the website and which need to be updated, migrated, or removed.

You can find web pages that are missing the Google Analytics tracking code or the conversion tracking code through tag auditing.

You can find broken data layers, CSS selectors, and misconfigured triggers through tag auditing.

If you do not regularly audit your tags, you will have hard time fixing tracking and conversion issues on your website on time.

Regular audits are especially important for large e-commerce websites, as they help promptly fix tracking and conversion issues that could negatively impact revenue and marketing campaign performance.

By reviewing your GTM setup quarterly, you can identify and fix problems before they significantly impact your data collection and business bottomline.