Plan before you track
Analytics without a plan creates data nobody uses. A measurement plan connects business objectives to what you will track:
- Business objectives: what the organisation needs (more qualified leads, online sales, retention).
- Goals and KPIs: how you will know (lead form submissions, revenue, repeat purchase rate).
- Events and conversions: the specific user actions to track (form_submit, purchase, sign_up, file_download, phone_click).
- Dimensions: how you will slice the data (traffic source, campaign, device, landing page, content category).
- Targets: what good looks like.
Data quality and privacy
Decide upfront: which consent is needed before tracking, how to exclude internal traffic, data retention settings, and a strict rule never to send personally identifiable information (names, emails, phone numbers) into analytics tools. Most analytics terms prohibit it, and it creates privacy risk.
Worked examples
Measurement plan
Objective,KPI,Event/conversion,Dimensions,Target
Grow qualified leads,Consultation requests,form_submit (contact),Source/medium; landing page; device,60/month
Grow newsletter,Sign-ups,sign_up (newsletter),Source/medium; content category,400/month
Online sales,Revenue,purchase (with value),Campaign; product; device,$25k/monthKey takeaways
- Start with a measurement plan linking objectives to KPIs, events and dimensions.
- Decide consent, internal-traffic exclusion and retention up front.
- Never send personal information into analytics tools.
Practice: Write your measurement plan
- List two business objectives.
- Define KPIs and the events that represent them.
- Choose three dimensions to analyse by.
- Set targets for each KPI.
Go further: Review your plan with a stakeholder before configuring anything.