GA4 and Google Tag Manager consulting, setup and repair.
We set up and repair Google Analytics 4 and Google Tag Manager for companies that spend real money on ads and need the numbers to hold up.
That means a GA4 property with the right data streams, key events that map to actual leads and orders, consent mode v2 wired correctly, cross-domain tracking where checkout or booking lives on another domain, internal traffic filtered out, and a BigQuery export so the raw data is yours. On the Tag Manager side we clean up containers nobody has touched in years, design a dataLayer your developers can maintain, and document every tag. We run GA4 and GTM on our own brands every day, so we build them the way an operator needs them: few events, clearly named, tied to money.
Questions this page answers
- How do I find a Google Tag Manager consultant who fixes a messy container?
- Do I need help with GA4 migration if Universal Analytics is already gone?
- Why does GA4 show fewer conversions than Google Ads?
- How should key events be set up in GA4 for a lead-gen business?
- How do I set up consent mode v2 with Google Tag Manager?
- Is the GA4 BigQuery export worth turning on?
Step 1 of 2
How can we help you get found?
Next: name, email and budget. That’s it.
Where GA4 and Google Tag Manager pays off, and where it stalls.
GA4 is an event model, not a pageview model. Every interaction is an event with parameters, and only the events you mark as key events (Google renamed conversions to key events in 2024) count as outcomes in reports. Google Tag Manager is the layer that decides which events fire and what data rides along. In practice most companies have both installed, often twice: a hardcoded gtag snippet in the theme plus a GA4 tag in GTM, which doubles page views and inflates engagement. Nobody notices because the totals still look plausible.
Where companies get stuck is ownership and definitions. The GA4 property belongs to a former agency's account, the GTM container has tags from three vendors, and 'conversion' means form views in one place and thank-you pages in another. Consent banners block tags without consent mode sending cookieless pings, so data quietly drops. Checkout on a subdomain or a booking tool breaks sessions and credits sales to referral traffic. Staff visits are counted as leads. Then someone compares GA4 to Google Ads, sees two different numbers, and stops trusting both.
We start by getting admin access into your own Google account and inventorying every tag, trigger and variable. Then we write a short measurement plan: the handful of key events that matter, what parameters each carries, and which platform owns which number. We rebuild the container from that plan, move logic into a documented dataLayer, set consent mode v2 and cross-domain rules, filter internal traffic, and turn on BigQuery export. Every change is tested in Tag Assistant preview and GA4 DebugView before it is published, with a named version and a note.
Feeds it
- Website forms
- Ecommerce checkout
- Booking tools
- Tracked calls
- Consent banner
It feeds
- GA4 key events
- Google Ads conversions
- BigQuery raw data
- Looker Studio dashboards
Every connection is built on your accounts and documented, so the data survives any change of vendor.
GA4 and Tag Manager setup and repair, scoped to the result.
GA4 audit
We review your property settings, data streams, key events, retention, filters, attribution settings and linked products, and hand back a ranked list of what is wrong and what it is costing you in bad decisions.
GA4 migration and rebuild
For properties created by an automatic migration or copied from old Universal Analytics goals, we rebuild the event plan, rename events consistently, and retire the leftovers that clutter every report.
Tag Manager container cleanup
We inventory every tag, trigger and variable, remove duplicates and dead vendor tags, set naming conventions and folders, and publish a clean, versioned container with notes your next hire can read.
dataLayer design
We write the dataLayer specification for forms, bookings, calls and purchases, including values and IDs, so developers push structured events and GTM reads them instead of scraping page elements.
Consent mode v2 and cross-domain setup
We connect your consent banner to consent mode v2, configure cross-domain measurement for checkout or booking domains, and verify both in preview so consented and unconsented traffic behave correctly.
BigQuery export and training
We link GA4 to BigQuery so you own raw event data beyond the retention window, then walk your team through reading reports, explorations and DebugView without calling us.
Where GA4 and Google Tag Manager setups break.
The problems we are most often hired to fix, in the order they tend to cost money.
Double-installed GA4
A hardcoded gtag snippet in the site theme and a GA4 tag in Tag Manager both fire, so every page view and event counts twice. Engagement looks great, conversion rates look terrible, and nobody knows why.
Too many key events
Scroll depth, video plays and every button click get marked as key events. Google Ads imports them, bidding optimizes toward cheap noise, and the real lead or purchase gets buried among a dozen counted actions.
Consent banner without consent mode
The cookie banner blocks tags outright instead of passing consent state to Google, so unconsented visits vanish entirely and modeled data never fills the gap. Reported traffic drops and nobody links it to the banner.
Broken cross-domain sessions
Checkout, scheduling or payment runs on another domain that is not in the cross-domain list, so sessions restart there and sales get credited to the booking tool as a referral instead of the ad that drove them.
GA4 and Google Tag Manager, wired into the rest of the business.
Google Ads
Linked to GA4 for audiences, with primary conversions chosen deliberately to avoid double counting.
BigQuery
Daily GA4 export so raw events outlive retention limits and feed custom reporting.
Google Search Console
Linked to GA4 so organic queries and landing pages sit beside engagement data.
CallRail
Calls sent into GA4 as events with source data from dynamic number insertion.
Shopify
Purchase events verified against orders so revenue in GA4 matches the store within reason.
HubSpot
Form submissions and UTM values passed through so GA4 and CRM sources agree.
Cookiebot
Consent platform connected to consent mode v2 through a Tag Manager template.
From audit to running it.
Audit.
We get admin access in your own accounts, inventory the container and property, compare GA4 against platform and CRM numbers, and write up what is broken, what matters, and the fix order.
Fix or build.
We write the measurement plan, rebuild the container and GA4 configuration from it, implement the dataLayer with your developer, and test every event in Tag Assistant preview and DebugView.
Connect.
We link Google Ads, Search Console and BigQuery, choose which key events are imported for bidding, and pass call and CRM data so every system uses the same event names.
Run or hand over.
We either monitor tags monthly and handle site changes that break tracking, or hand over documentation, container versions and a recorded walkthrough so your team owns it.
A good fit
- Companies spending on Google or Meta ads who need conversion numbers they can bid on and defend in a budget meeting.
- Businesses whose GA4 and Tag Manager were set up by a departed agency or employee and nobody can explain them now.
- Teams with checkout, booking or payment on a separate domain that keeps breaking attribution.
- Companies ready to own their raw analytics data in BigQuery instead of renting it from a report screen.
Probably not a fit
- If you are pre-launch with little traffic, a basic GA4 install is enough for now and does not need a consultant.
- If you need GA4 360 contract negotiation or enterprise reseller billing, you want a Google reseller, and we are not one.
Pricing, plainly.
GA4 and Google Tag Manager are free to use on their standard versions. Google sells paid enterprise tiers, GA4 360 and Tag Manager 360, with higher limits and service agreements, which most small and mid-size companies do not need. BigQuery export is available on standard properties, and you pay Google Cloud only for storage and queries, which stays small for most sites. Our work is scoped after a short call: usually a fixed-scope audit or rebuild first, then either monthly monitoring and change management or a documented hand-over. Ongoing work runs month to month after an initial term.
GA4 and Google Tag Manager by business type.
- Product brandsMarketing agency and e-commerce builder for product brands: headless Shopify storefronts, Amazon Brand Registry and listings, Klaviyo, ads tracked to orders.
- SaaS companiesMarketing agency and product studio for B2B and vertical SaaS companies: trial-to-paid flows, pricing configurators, referral attribution and billing systems.
- Law firmsMarketing agency and web builder for law firms and case-connection services: primary-source content, compliant ads, flat-fee leads, Clio and Filevine intake.
- HVAC and plumbing companiesMarketing agency and website builder for HVAC, plumbing and commercial refrigeration companies: city pages, LSA, call tracking and ServiceTitan wiring.
- Lenders and loan marketplacesMarketing agency and systems builder for consumer and auto lenders and loan marketplaces: match quizzes, consent capture, offer APIs, TCPA-safe lead delivery.
- Med spas and aesthetic clinicsMed spa marketing agency for aesthetic clinics, dermatology and plastic surgery practices: websites that book, compliant paid media, reviews and patient CRM.
Reading on GA4 and Google Tag Manager.
- Paid Media · Takeaway
Enhanced conversions send hashed customer data such as email and phone with a conversion so Google can match it to a signed-in user when cookies fall short.
Paid Media · 11 min read
Enhanced Conversions in Google Ads: Web, Leads and CRM Imports.
Enhanced conversions add hashed first-party data to your Google Ads conversions so more of them get measured, and the leads version lets you import qualified, booked and sold outcomes from your CRM. Here is how both work and how to set them up.
Read - Lead Generation · Takeaway
Automated bidding makes the conversion definition the most important setting in the account.
Lead Generation · 10 min read
The Conversion Tracking Audit Checklist We Run Before Spending a Dollar.
Automated bidding optimizes toward whatever you call a conversion. This checklist makes sure that definition is true before the budget goes up.
Read - Systems & Integration · Takeaway
The CallRail GA4 integration sends each call as an event using the visitor's GA4 client ID, so the call lands in the same session as the click.
Systems & Integration · 10 min read
CallRail GA4 Integration: Get Phone Calls Into GA4 Correctly.
Phone calls are the conversion most service businesses care about and the one GA4 knows least about. Here is how we push CallRail calls into GA4 as key events that carry the right source, medium and landing page.
Read
Hiring help with GA4 and Google Tag Manager.
- Are you a certified Google Partner?
- No. We are an independent firm, not a Google Partner or Google Marketing Platform reseller. We do hold a Google Ads manager account and run GA4 and Tag Manager on our own brands daily. Being independent means we recommend the setup that fits your business and are not paid to move you onto a paid tier or a bundled product.
- Why does GA4 show different conversion numbers than Google Ads?
- They count differently. Google Ads credits conversions to the date of the ad click and uses its own attribution model, while GA4 credits the date of the event and can use a different model and lookback window. Consent choices, ad blockers and duplicate events widen the gap. We document which system owns which number so the difference is explained, not argued about.
- Is GA4 migration still a thing now that Universal Analytics is gone?
- Yes, in practice. Many GA4 properties were created by Google's automatic migration or by copying old goals, so they carry event names and conversions that no longer mean anything. A proper migration today is a rebuild: a fresh measurement plan, consistent event names, the right key events, and historical context noted so trend lines are read correctly.
- Do we need consent mode v2?
- If you advertise to users in the European Economic Area or the UK, Google requires consent mode v2 for personalized advertising and audience features. Outside those regions it is still useful when you run a consent banner, because it lets tags send cookieless signals instead of going silent. We connect your banner to it and verify both consent states in preview.
- Should we turn on the BigQuery export?
- Usually yes. GA4 standard properties keep event-level data for a limited retention window, and reports apply thresholds and sampling in explorations. The BigQuery export gives you the raw events to keep indefinitely and query any way you like. Setup takes minutes, cost is typically small, and it cannot be backfilled, so the earlier it starts the better.
- How do you test changes before they go live?
- Every change is built in a Tag Manager workspace, tested in Tag Assistant preview on the real site, and checked in GA4 DebugView to confirm the event name and parameters arrive as designed. Only then do we publish, as a named version with a description, so any change can be rolled back in one click.
Let’s get GA4 and Google Tag Manager working for you.
A short note on where the business is and where it needs to go. A senior partner replies within one business day.