The site changed. Which tracking handoff broke?
When conversions drop or traffic sources shift right after a website migration, redesign or checkout update, each supplier naturally checks their own piece of the puzzle. Your developers check the site templates, your paid agency checks the campaigns, and nobody has a clear view of the handoffs in between. - Orders or enquiries are still arriving in the business, but GA4 or Google Ads conversions fell away after launch. - Direct traffic surged overnight after a replatforming, domain change or checkout update. - Multiple teams are involved and you need to know which system actually broke before spending developer time in the wrong place. - You have a major release coming up and want the tracking chain tested end to end before switching over. Agentix provides cross-platform tracking audits for UK eCommerce, B2B and trade businesses. Rather than looking at a single tool in isolation, we trace one completed order or enquiry from the website page, through the data layer, cookie banner and Google Tag Manager, all the way into GA4, Google Ads and your sales records.
Why post-release tracking drops are hard to untangle from a dashboard
A report in GA4 or Google Ads can only tell you that the signal stopped arriving; it cannot tell you where along the chain it was dropped. When a website is rebuilt or moved to a new platform, the pages can look fine to a customer while the underlying measurement plumbing has changed completely. Between a customer clicking "Pay" or "Submit" and that conversion appearing in your reports, the data has to cross **six separate handoffs**: | Handoff checkpoint | How a site release breaks it | What you see in your reports | | -- | -- | -- | | 1. Website page action | A script error on the new checkout or form template halts execution before tracking runs | Orders or leads arrive in the business, while analytics records nothing on that page | | 2. Data layer push | New theme templates omit the `purchase` or `generate_lead` event or rename its fields | Conversions fire with £0.00 value, missing product details or missing transaction IDs | | 3. Consent state | The release changes the script loading order or resets consent between subdomains | Paid and organic traffic drops away and reappears as Direct sessions | | 4. Tag Manager triggers | Triggers still listen for old button classes, old
Separating a tracking failure from a real drop in sales
When analytics numbers collapse after a launch, the first job is checking whether customer demand actually dropped or whether the business is flying blind because of a broken handoff. Here is an illustrative example with invented round numbers (not a client result) comparing the week before a site release with the week after: | Checkpoint | Pre-release week | Post-release week | Difference | What this tells your team | | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | | Store backend / CRM records | 100 completed orders | 98 completed orders | -2 orders (-2%) | Customers are still buying normally; the new checkout works for shoppers. | | GA4 recorded purchases | 92 purchases | 14 purchases | -78 purchases (-85%) | A reporting visibility gap sits in the tracking plumbing, not in customer demand. | | Google Ads conversions | 44 conversions | 6 conversions | -38 conversions (-86%) | Automated bidding is losing its signal and risks throttling working campaigns. | | Direct share of sessions | 20% of sessions | 64% of sessions | +44 percentage points | Redirects or consent script ordering are stripping campaign attribution on arrival. | Notice that the gap of 78 unrecorded purchases in GA4 is a **measuremen
How we run a cross-platform tracking audit
We don't audit every minor click tag in your account for the sake of padding a document. We scope the audit around the commercial actions that matter to your business: 1. **Trace one real test transaction end to end.** We agree what a completed order, quote request or trade account application looks like, run a controlled test through the live or staging journey, and inspect each of the six handoffs using browser developer tools, Tag Assistant and your receiving records. 2. **Pinpoint the first break and its owner.** Rebuilding a Google Ads conversion goal is a waste of time if the website stopped pushing the event at Handoff 2. We identify the exact point where the signal was lost or duplicated and assign the fix to the right owner. 3. **Fix what sits in GTM and analytics, and brief the rest.** Where the fault sits inside Google Tag Manager, GA4 or your consent configuration, we fix it directly. Where a developer needs to restore a `dataLayer.push` or stop a server redirect from stripping `_gl` and `gclid` parameters, we write a clear technical specification for them, and once they've made the change, we retest the journey.
Frequently asked questions
### When do we need a cross-platform tracking audit instead of a GA4 audit? If you already know the issue is inside your GA4 reports or property settings, a focused GA4 audit is the right route. A cross-platform tracking audit is built for situations where the numbers dropped after a website change or where GA4, Google Ads, Tag Manager and your backend records all disagree, and you need someone to trace the whole chain to find which system broke first. ### Why did our Direct traffic spike and Google Ads conversions drop after a site move? In our experience, two post-launch faults cause this pattern: either server redirects on the new URLs are stripping campaign query parameters (`gclid`, `utm_*`) and Google's cross-domain linker parameter (`_gl`) before Tag Manager loads, or the cookie banner and GTM scripts are firing out of sequence on the new templates. We test the arrival redirect chain and consent state in browser network logs to see which one is happening. ### Can you check our new website on staging before we launch? Yes. Bringing us in before launch is the cleanest way to avoid a post-migration drop. We trace your key checkout or enquiry journeys on the staging environmen
Speak to us about a tracking audit
Tell us what changed on your site, which conversion or revenue figure looks wrong, and which systems are involved. We'll carry out a short access review, tell you where we would trace first, and give you a clear scope and quote for the audit.