Tracking Field Manual

Why bother?

Ads cost money every day. Without tracking, all you can say at the end of the month is "we spent ₺10,000 and the phone seemed busier." With tracking you can say which campaign, ad or channel brought which calls, WhatsApp messages and bookings, and in the end which of them became paying customers. Then you can stop paying for what doesn't work and put more money into what does.

Keep one mindset from this first page to the last:

The measurement plan

Before touching any tool, write a measurement plan: a one-page table that goes from what the owner wants down to where each number will be counted. You can do it on paper in 30 minutes. It has four layers:

1. Business goal: what the owner actually wants, in plain words. Example: "fill the workshop: 30 more paid jobs a month."
2. KPIs (key performance indicators): the few numbers that show progress toward the goal, such as new paying customers and cost per customer.
3. Events / conversions: the actions on your website, profile or phone that lead toward the goal: a call, a WhatsApp message, a form booking, a direction request.
4. Tools: where each action gets counted (Google Analytics, Google Ads, your Google Business Profile, Meta, your own spreadsheet).

Macro and micro conversions

A conversion is any action you count as a success. Not all successes are equal, so split them in two:

In Google Analytics 4 (GA4, Google's free website analytics, covered in Module 05), every recorded action is an event, and the important ones you mark as key events. Google renamed "conversions" to "key events" in March 2024; the word "conversion" is now used for key events that you share with Google Ads for bidding. The chain is: event → key event → Google Ads conversion. Mark macros as key events; leave micros as normal events.

Kaya's measurement plan

Some words in that table (GTM, GBP, tel:) are explained in the coming modules. For now, notice the shape: one goal, three KPIs, a handful of macro events, two micros, and one offline row that ties everything to money.

Ad platforms throw dozens of numbers at you. Almost all of them are one division away from each other. Learn the formulas once and every report becomes readable.

The metrics glossary

A worked funnel: Kaya's "Kış bakımı" campaign

ROAS, ROI and break-even ROAS

These three answer different questions, and mixing them up is how businesses lose money while the report looks great.

The lifetime view

A good car repair customer comes back. If a typical Kaya customer returns about twice a year for three years: ₺4,000 × 2 × 3 = ₺24,000 revenue, × 40% margin = ₺9,600 gross profit over the relationship (illustrative). Against that, even ₺1,000 to win a customer can be worth it long term. That only shows up if your lead sheet records returning customers, which Module 08 sets up.

You'll meet ten tool names in this manual. Nearly all are free; you pay only for the ads. Before the tour, one word you'll see everywhere:

Tags, triggers and variables (the GTM vocabulary)

GTM has three building blocks. Once these click, every tracking recipe on this page reads like a sentence.

So a GTM recipe reads: "When [trigger] happens, send [tag], using [variables]." You also get a Preview mode to test before you Publish changes to the live site.

When someone taps the link in your Instagram bio or scans the QR code on a flyer, GA4 often can't tell where they came from. The visit lands in a vague bucket like "direct" or "referral." UTM parameters fix that.

The five parameters

Google's rule: always use at least source, medium and campaign. GA4 also understands utm_id (a campaign ID) and utm_source_platform; you'll see utm_id in the Meta example below. Google's free Campaign URL Builder (ga-dev-tools.google/campaign-url-builder) does the same job as the builder further down this page.

Naming rules

• All lowercase. GA4 treats Instagram and instagram as two different sources.
• No spaces, no Turkish characters. Use _ or -. Write kis_bakimi, not Kış Bakımı. Characters like ı, ş, ğ get encoded into unreadable strings like %C4%B1.
• Use standard mediums so GA4's automatic "default channel group" sorts visits correctly: cpc for paid search, paid_social for paid social, social for unpaid posts, email, sms. GA4 has no default channel for print, so qr visits show up as "Unassigned" in channel reports; that's fine, read them by source/medium instead. After a week, check in GA4 (Reports → Acquisition → Traffic acquisition) that your visits landed in the channel you expected.
• Keep a shared "UTM log": one Google Sheet listing every tagged link, where it's used and when it was created. Everyone on the team copies names from it.

Examples for Kaya

Below, kayaotoservis.example stands in for Kaya's domain.

Meta ads: dynamic parameters

Meta can fill in the campaign and ad names for you. In each ad, find the URL parameters field (under the website link, not inside the Website URL box itself) and paste:

utm_source={{site_source_name}}&utm_medium=paid_social&utm_campaign={{campaign.name}}&utm_content={{ad.name}}&utm_id={{campaign.id}}

Meta swaps each {{…}} for the real value when someone clicks. {{site_source_name}} becomes fb, ig, msg (Messenger) or an (Audience Network). Other options: {{adset.name}}, {{adset.id}}, {{ad.id}}. IDs survive if you rename a campaign; names are readable. Using both is the safe choice.

Google Ads: auto-tagging, not UTMs

GA4 records what people do on your website. It is free and it is the hub most other tools connect to, so set it up first.

Step by step

1. Create the account and property. At analytics.google.com, sign in with the business's Google account and create an account ("Kaya Oto Servis") and a property. Set the time zone to Türkiye and the currency to Turkish lira (TRY) so days and revenue match your books.
2. Add a web data stream. Choose "Web," enter your site address, and keep enhanced measurement switched on. Copy the Measurement ID (G-…).
3. Install it through GTM. Create a GTM container at tagmanager.google.com (one container per site) and install its code on every page; on WordPress, a GTM plugin does this. In GTM, add a Google tag with your Measurement ID, firing on all pages. Click Preview, browse your site, then Publish.
4. Set data retention to 14 months. Admin → Data collection and modification → Data retention. GA4 keeps detailed event data for only 2 months by default. The setting is not retroactive: data older than 2 months at the time you change it is already gone. It affects Explorations (custom analyses), not the standard reports.
5. Filter out your own visits. Admin → Data streams → your stream → Configure tag settings → Define internal traffic: add the shop's office IP address. Then in Admin → Data filters, switch the "Internal traffic" filter from Testing to Active. Otherwise every time the admin checks the price page, it counts as a visitor.
6. Link Google Ads. Admin → Product links → Google Ads links. This lets GA4 read the gclid and show campaign details, and lets Google Ads import your key events (Module 07).
7. Link Search Console. Admin → Product links → Search Console links. You need Editor rights in GA4 and to be a verified owner in Search Console. It adds two reports, "Google Organic Search Queries" and "Google Organic Search Traffic"; data arrives about 48 hours later. One property links to one Search Console site.
8. Check data is arriving. Open Reports → Realtime and visit your own site from a phone on mobile data (not the office Wi-Fi, which you just filtered out). For detailed testing, GTM Preview mode also opens GA4's DebugView (Admin → DebugView), which shows each event as it arrives.

What enhanced measurement gives you for free

With enhanced measurement on, GA4 records these events without any setup:

Key events: mark only the macros

When an event has arrived at least once, it appears in Admin → Events (or Data display → Events). Mark only your macro events from Module 01 as key events: phone_click, whatsapp_click, generate_lead, and optionally directions_click. You can also create a key event in advance by typing its exact name.

A car repair customer rarely "buys online." They tap the phone number, send a WhatsApp message, fill a short booking form, or ask Google Maps for directions and drive over. Each of those needs its own tracking. This module goes through them one by one, then sums them up in a table.

1 · Website visits and clicks

Google Ads and Meta count clicks on the ad. GA4 counts sessions on your site. Expect fewer sessions than clicks: some people leave before the page loads, some block cookies, and some decline your cookie banner (Module 10). In Kaya's illustrative funnel, 600 clicks became about 540 sessions. Clicks from your Google profile appear in GBP Performance as "Website clicks," and in GA4 under the UTM you added in Module 04.

2 · Phone taps (tel: links)

The GTM recipe:

1. Turn on click variables. GTM → Variables → Configure → tick all the Clicks built-in variables (Click URL, Click Text and the others).
2. Create the trigger. Triggers → New → Click – Just Links → "Some link clicks" → Click URL starts with tel:. Name it "Click – tel".
3. Create the tag. Tags → New → Google Analytics: GA4 Event. Event name phone_click; add a parameter link_url = {{Click URL}}. Fire it on the "Click – tel" trigger.
4. Test. Click Preview, tap the phone number on your site, and check that the tag shows as "fired" in GTM and that phone_click appears in GA4 DebugView. Then Publish.
5. Mark it as a key event in GA4 once it appears in the events list (Module 05).

Written out as settings, the trigger and tag look like this:

TRIGGER  "Click – tel"
  Type:        Click – Just Links
  Fires on:    Some Link Clicks
  Condition:   Click URL   starts with   tel:

TAG  "GA4 – phone_click"
  Type:        Google Analytics: GA4 Event
  Event name:  phone_click
  Parameter:   link_url = {{Click URL}}
  Trigger:     Click – tel

In plain words: "When someone clicks a link whose address starts with tel:, send GA4 an event called phone_click and note which number they tapped."

3 · WhatsApp clicks (wa.me links)

Same recipe, different trigger and event name:

TRIGGER  "Click – WhatsApp"
  Type:        Click – Just Links
  Fires on:    Some Link Clicks
  Condition:   Click URL   matches RegEx   wa\.me|api\.whatsapp\.com|web\.whatsapp\.com

TAG  "GA4 – whatsapp_click"
  Type:        Google Analytics: GA4 Event
  Event name:  whatsapp_click
  Parameter:   link_url = {{Click URL}}
  Trigger:     Click – WhatsApp

In plain words: "If the clicked link goes to any of WhatsApp's three web addresses, send whatsapp_click." (The "RegEx" condition lets one rule match several addresses; the | means "or" and \. means a real dot.) Mark whatsapp_click as a key event, and send the Meta Contact event on the same trigger (Module 07).

And again: a click is not a message. Someone can open WhatsApp and never press send. Count real chats in WhatsApp Business; its labels (e.g. "Yeni müşteri – reklam," "Randevu verildi," "İş tamamlandı") make the weekly count quick.

4 · Booking and quote forms

Methods ranked from most to least reliable:

1. Thank-you page. After the form is sent, the site shows a separate page such as /tesekkurler. In GTM, a Page View trigger where Page Path starts with /tesekkurler fires a GA4 event generate_lead. Simple and robust. ("Starts with" rather than "equals" because WordPress usually adds a trailing slash: /tesekkurler/.)
2. The form plugin's own success event (a "dataLayer push"). Many WordPress form plugins offer this; ask the developer.
3. GTM's Form Submission trigger, which only works with standard HTML forms.
4. Enhanced measurement's form_submit: not recommended as a key event (Module 05).

TRIGGER  "Page – thank you"
  Type:        Page View
  Fires on:    Some Page Views
  Condition:   Page Path   starts with   /tesekkurler

TAG  "GA4 – generate_lead"
  Type:        Google Analytics: GA4 Event
  Event name:  generate_lead
  Parameter:   form_name = randevu
  Trigger:     Page – thank you

5 · Direction requests

Most direction requests happen on Google Maps, not on your website.

• GBP Performance → Directions: how many people asked Google for a route to you. Google adjusts it for repeat taps, cancellations and spam. Free; look at it monthly.
• Google Ads local actions: if your ads use a location asset (your address, linked from GBP), Google Ads automatically creates conversions for directions, clicks to call, website visits and other engagements from your listing. Useful to see ad-driven direction requests; but they are soft signals, so think twice before using them as main bidding goals.
• On your website: a "Yol tarifi al" (get directions) link to Google Maps is tracked like a phone tap. Trigger: Click URL matches RegEx google\.com/maps|maps\.app\.goo\.gl|goo\.gl/maps; event directions_click. (Use one RegEx rule: separate conditions in one GTM trigger must all be true, so two "contains" lines would never fire.)

6 · Phone calls in Türkiye

In many countries, Google Ads can show a special Google forwarding number in your ads and on your site, record each call's length, and count calls over, say, 60 seconds as conversions. Türkiye is not on the list of countries where Google forwarding numbers are available. So two features don't work for a Turkish shop:

• Call reporting (call length, time, caller area code), and
• Website call conversions (Google swapping the number on your website to track calls).

What still works: call assets (your number shown in the ad) and location assets. Without forwarding numbers, Google's "calls from ads" conversions are based on taps on the call button, not real call length. Plus your own tel: tracking from step 2. Google's country list can change, so check it in Google Ads Help before you set up.

Summary: action → tracking → where it shows

GA4 tells you what happened. The ad platforms need to know too, for two reasons: so their reports show which ads produced leads, and so their automatic bidding (Google's Smart Bidding, Meta's delivery system) learns which people to find more of. If you tell them nothing, they optimise for clicks.

Google Ads

The conversion actions Kaya needs

1. Calls from ads, via the call asset (counted as call-button taps in Türkiye, Module 06).
2. Phone taps on the website (phone_click).
3. Booking form sent (generate_lead).
4. WhatsApp clicks on the website (whatsapp_click).
5. Directions, from the website link or the location asset; optional, as a secondary action.
6. Later: paying customers, uploaded offline (Module 08).

Two ways to feed website conversions in

Turn enhanced conversions on in Google Ads (Goals → Settings, or in the conversion action) and follow the setup it offers for your tag. Collect only data your form already asks for, and make sure your privacy notice covers it (Module 10).

Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp ads)

Run the Pixel and CAPI together. Because the same event then arrives twice, Meta deduplicates it: both copies carry the same event name and the same event_id, and Meta keeps one. Good plugins and the guided setup handle this for you. In Events Manager, check Event Match Quality: a higher score means Meta can match more events to real accounts, and sending hashed email or phone improves it.

Meta standard events for a car repair shop

Test before you trust

1. In Events Manager, open your dataset (pixel) → Test events.
2. Enter your website address and open the site from there (on a computer or your phone).
3. Tap the phone number, the WhatsApp button, send a test form. Each event should appear within seconds, marked as received from the browser, the server, or both (deduplicated).
4. Delete your test form entry from the lead sheet so it isn't counted as a lead.

Everything so far counts leads. But a lead is not a customer: some callers only want a price, some book and don't show up. To know what ads really earn, you have to record what happens after the call or chat. This is called closing the loop.

The lead sheet

Every lead, whatever its route (call, WhatsApp, form, walk-in), goes into one Google Sheet or simple CRM (customer relationship management software). The columns:

Mock rows; names abbreviated, all values illustrative. Scroll sideways on a phone.

• Channel = how they contacted you (call, WhatsApp, form, walk-in).
• Source = where they heard about you, from "Bizi nereden duydunuz?" or the form's hidden UTM fields. Use a dropdown with fixed answers so no one types "insta," "IG" and "Instagram" for the same thing.
• Customer? = No / Booked / Yes. Update it when the job is done and paid.
• gclid = the Google click ID from the form's hidden field (Module 06), if the lead came through a Google ad and a form. Needed only for the classic Google upload below.

Level 1: the manual loop (everyone)

Once a week, filter the sheet by source and count: leads, booked, paid, revenue. Divide each platform's spend by its paid customers to get cost per customer by source. This needs no technology beyond the sheet, and it is the number the owner cares about.

Level 2: send paying customers back to the platforms

Start this once tracking has run cleanly for 4–8 weeks and the sheet is filled in reliably, and only after the KVKK review in Module 10.

Google Ads

• Classic offline conversion import: capture the gclid with each lead (hidden form field). When the job is paid, upload a row with gclid, conversion name (e.g. "Paid job"), date/time and value. Auto-tagging must be on.
• Enhanced conversions for leads (Google's current recommendation): instead of relying only on the gclid, Google matches the hashed email or phone number collected in your form. Google says it is easier and more durable than gclid-only import; it reports a median of about 10% more conversions (Google's own figure).
• How to upload: Google's help now points to Data Manager (inside Google Ads) as the easiest route; check whether your account also still offers a manual file or Google Sheet upload under Goals → Conversions. Developers: since 15 June 2026, offline and enhanced-conversions-for-leads uploads go through the Data Manager API; the old Google Ads API route is blocked. Menus change often, so follow the current Help page when you set this up.

Meta

• Meta's old standalone Offline Conversions API was discontinued on 14 May 2025. Offline events (like a paid job) now go through the regular Conversions API into your dataset, with an action_source such as physical_store or system_generated, matched on hashed email or phone.
• For click-to-WhatsApp leads, Meta's Conversions API for business messaging can report that a chat became a lead or a purchase (it uses a click ID, ctwa_clid, attached to ad-originated messages). It requires the WhatsApp Business Platform (API, usually via a provider), not the free app, and events must be sent within 7 days.
• Check in Events Manager whether a manual file upload of offline events is offered for your dataset; otherwise this needs a CRM integration or a developer.

Customers rarely see one ad and call. A typical path: an Instagram ad on Monday, a Google search on Thursday, a call on Friday.

The models you can choose

First click, linear, time decay and position-based models were removed from GA4 and Google Ads in 2023; Google cited under 3% usage. Old tutorials still mention them.

One customer, three different stories

Why the numbers disagree

• Each platform credits itself. Meta and Google can both claim the same booking.
• Different windows and models (7-day click on Meta, 30-day click on Google Ads, data-driven in GA4).
• Different dates. Google Ads reports a conversion on the date of the ad click; GA4 on the date the conversion happened. A Thursday click and Friday call land on different days.
• View-through and modelled conversions. Ad platforms count view-throughs that GA4 never sees, and each tool estimates ("models") conversions from people who declined cookies in its own way.
• Reporting delays of 24–48 hours or more.
• Double counting if both the Google Ads tag and an imported GA4 key event are Primary for the same action (Module 07).

A practical stance for a small business

1. Never add up platform conversions. Google says 40 and Meta says 30 does not mean 70 leads.
2. Use the blended number. Total ad spend across all platforms ÷ total new paying customers (from the lead sheet) = blended cost per customer. This is the number the owner should see first.
3. Compare weekly. If ads report 60 leads but the sheet shows 25 new customers, trust the sheet and find out why (spam forms, wrong numbers, slow replies).
4. Test incrementality simply. In a normal season, pause one channel for 2–3 weeks, or run it only in some districts, and watch whether total bookings drop. Brand-name search ads in particular often look better than they are, because people searching your name would have found you anyway.

KVKK and cookies

KVKK published a draft guide on cookies (Çerez Uygulamaları Hakkında Rehber) in 2022, announced the final guide in late 2024, and published an updated version in July 2025. In practice, according to law-firm summaries of the guide:

• No consent needed for cookies strictly needed to transmit the communication or to provide a service the user asked for (a login session, a shopping cart).
• Explicit consent before setting analytics, advertising/marketing and remarketing cookies. That covers GA4, the Google Ads tag, the Meta Pixel and Microsoft Clarity.
• The banner offers Accept all, Reject all and Preferences with equal prominence; no pre-ticked boxes; consent is an active opt-in, can be withdrawn at any time, and the design avoids "dark patterns" (tricks that push people to accept).
• A separate cookie policy / aydınlatma metni is required.

Google Consent Mode v2

Consent Mode passes the visitor's banner choice to Google tags through four signals: ad_storage, analytics_storage, ad_user_data and ad_personalization (the last two were added in v2).

Since March 2024, Google requires Consent Mode for advertisers using its measurement and remarketing for users in the EEA (plus the UK and Switzerland). Türkiye is not in the EEA, so that enforcement doesn't directly cover Turkish visitors. But KVKK already requires consent for these cookies, so you need a banner anyway, and Consent Mode is the standard way to make Google tags obey it. Any visitors from the EEA (tourists, expats) fall under Google's EEA rule.

Customer data, uploads and transfers abroad

GA4, the Meta Pixel and CAPI, and any customer list upload (Google Customer Match, Meta custom audiences, offline conversion imports from Module 08) send personal data to companies abroad. Under KVKK Article 9, as amended by Law 7499 from 1 June 2024, transfers abroad rely on an adequacy decision (none issued yet, per the source used here), standard contracts (which must be notified to the Authority within 5 business days of signing), or, only for occasional transfers, explicit consent. Hashing the email or phone before upload doesn't by itself make it non-personal data.

İYS for SMS and email

Commercial SMS, email and calls to consumers require prior consent, and the sender must be registered in İYS (İleti Yönetim Sistemi, the national message management system) under Law 6563, even for a single promotional SMS. Transactional messages ("your car is ready") are exempt. B2B recipients (registered tradespeople and merchants) don't need prior consent, but you still must be registered in İYS. Fines are per violation and the amounts change yearly; check the current figures. When you do send campaign messages, tag their links with utm_medium=sms or utm_medium=email (Module 04).

Data you will never see

Browser tags (GA4, the Pixel) lose events to iOS privacy settings, Safari's tracking prevention, ad blockers and declined consent. Expect GA4 to show fewer sessions than ad clicks. This is normal. Meta CAPI and Google's enhanced conversions recover part of it; your lead sheet catches the rest. Don't chase perfect numbers.

Tracking is only useful if someone looks at it on a fixed day and makes decisions. This module gives you the layout and the routine.

The dashboard layout

Build it in Data Studio (free; formerly Looker Studio). It connects natively to GA4, Google Ads and Search Console. Meta data and your lead sheet come in through a Google Sheet: either copy Meta's numbers in by hand each week, or use a paid connector. Arrange it top-down, from money to detail:

1. Scorecards: ad spend · leads · CPL · new customers · cost per customer · revenue · ROAS.
2. Leads by week, one line per channel.
3. Campaign table: campaign · spend · clicks · leads · CPL · customers · cost per customer.
4. Lead type breakdown: phone / WhatsApp / form / directions.
5. GBP actions and organic search trends (GBP Performance, Search Console).

All figures are made up for illustration, consistent with Kaya's examples in Module 09 (₺10,000 spend, 26 customers, ₺4,000 average ticket).

The routine

Ticks are saved in this browser only, so you can use the list as a reusable checklist (untick to reset).

How to judge if a campaign works

1. Primary test: cost per paying customer is at or below what you can afford (from margin and lifetime value, Module 02), and total bookings are rising compared with the same period before.
2. Secondary: CPL and lead quality (close rate). A cheap CPL with a 10% close rate can be worse than an expensive CPL with a 60% close rate.
3. Diagnostic signals: CTR, CPC and engagement rate explain why something works or not. They don't tell you whether it works.

Small numbers lie

• With a few dozen leads a month, one good or bad week swings CPL a lot. Don't judge an ad on 3 leads.
• Rule of thumb (not a statistical standard): wait at least about 2 weeks and several dozen clicks, or 10+ leads per variant, before deciding.
• New campaigns and edits trigger platform learning phases, which make the first days noisy. Avoid daily changes.
• Seasonality matters a lot for garages (winter tyres, pre-holiday checks before bayram trips). Compare like with like: this November with last November, not with October.

Testing without fooling yourself

• Test one thing at a time: headline, image, offer, or landing page.
• Tell variants apart with utm_content and clear ad names (Module 04).
• Keep a test log and a change log in the same sheet: date, what changed, result, decision. When a chart jumps, the log explains why (a theme update, a new offer, a price change).

Work through this list in order. Ticks are saved in your browser, so you can come back over several days. The first two steps need no technology at all.

• Write the measurement plan: goal, KPIs, macro and micro events, tools. (Module 01)
• Create the lead sheet with a "Source" dropdown and start asking "Bizi nereden duydunuz?" today. (Module 08)
• Create GA4: account, property (Türkiye time zone, TRY), web data stream; keep enhanced measurement on; set data retention to 14 months; filter internal traffic. (Module 05)
• Create a GTM container and install it on every page (or with a CMS plugin). One container per site. (Modules 03, 05)
• Install a consent banner (CMP) with Consent Mode v2, defaults denied, Accept / Reject / Preferences equal. Before any marketing tag goes live. (Module 10)
• Add the Google tag (GA4 Measurement ID) in GTM; Preview → Publish; confirm in GA4 Realtime / DebugView. (Module 05)
• Build the action events in GTM: phone_click, whatsapp_click, generate_lead (thank-you page), directions_click; mark the macros as key events in GA4. (Module 06)
• Link Google Ads ↔ GA4; keep auto-tagging on; import key events or use the Ads conversion tag (never two primaries for one action); turn on enhanced conversions. (Modules 05, 07)
• Link Search Console ↔ GA4; link GBP to Google Ads for location assets. (Modules 05, 06)
• Install the Meta Pixel and CAPI (plugin or guided setup) with Contact and Lead/Schedule, deduplicated; verify in Events Manager → Test events. (Module 07)
• Add UTMs to every link you control: GBP, Instagram/Facebook bio, WhatsApp, flyers/QR, SMS/email; Meta URL parameters; start the UTM log. (Module 04)
• Install Microsoft Clarity, behind consent. (Modules 03, 10)
• Set up per-channel phone numbers if your budget allows (virtual lines from a sanal santral provider). (Module 06)
• Build the dashboard in Data Studio and start the weekly / monthly routine. (Module 11)
• After 4–8 weeks: start offline uploads of paying customers to Google Ads / Meta, after a KVKK review. (Modules 08, 10)
• Ongoing: after every website change, re-test with GTM Preview, GA4 DebugView, Meta Test events and Tag Assistant.

Common mistakes

Thirteen ways beginners waste money or fool themselves, with the module that prevents each one.

Glossary

Attribution

Rules deciding which ad or channel gets credit for a conversion. GA4 and Google Ads offer data-driven and last click.

Auto-tagging

Google Ads adds a gclid to ad clicks so GA4 and offline uploads can identify the click. Keep it on.

Blended cost per customer

Total ad spend on all platforms ÷ new paying customers from your own records.

Break-even ROAS

1 ÷ gross margin. The ROAS below which ads lose money on the first job.

CAPI

Meta Conversions API: sends events from your server to Meta, alongside the Pixel.

CMP

Consent management platform: shows the cookie banner, stores choices and passes them to tags.

Consent Mode v2

Google's way for tags to respect the banner, using four signals (ad_storage, analytics_storage, ad_user_data, ad_personalization).

Conversion window

How many days after an ad interaction a conversion can still be credited to it.

CPL / CPA

Cost per lead / per action: spend ÷ leads.

CTR

Click-through rate: clicks ÷ impressions × 100.

Data Studio

Google's free dashboard tool, called Looker Studio until April 2026.

Dataset

Meta's container in Events Manager for Pixel, CAPI and offline events.

Enhanced conversions

Google Ads feature that sends hashed form data (email/phone) to match conversions more reliably; "for leads" connects later offline sales.

Engaged session

A GA4 visit over 10 seconds, or with a key event, or with 2+ page views.

Event / key event

Any action GA4 records / an important one you mark (formerly "conversion").

gclid

Google Click ID, added to landing page links by auto-tagging.

GTM

Google Tag Manager: a container for tags, triggers and variables.

İYS

İleti Yönetim Sistemi: Türkiye's registry for commercial SMS, email and call consent.

KVKK

Türkiye's personal data protection law (No. 6698) and its authority.

Lead sheet

One shared sheet or CRM where every lead, its source and whether it paid is recorded.

Macro / micro conversion

An action that is almost a lead / a sign of interest before a lead.

Measurement plan

One page: goal → KPIs → events → tools.

Offline conversion import

Uploading "this lead paid" data to Google Ads or Meta.

Pixel

Meta's browser tag on your website.

ROAS / ROI

Revenue ÷ ad spend / (gross profit − ad spend) ÷ ad spend.

Tag / trigger / variable

In GTM: what to send / when to send it / details used by both.

UTM parameters

Labels on a link (source, medium, campaign, content, term) that tell GA4 where a visit came from.

View-through

A conversion after someone only saw (didn't click) an ad.

Sources

Paraphrased; checked October 2026. Platform menus and rules change often.

1. Google Analytics Help: key events vs conversions
2. Google Analytics Help: recommended events
3. MeasureSchool: GA4 enhanced measurement
4. Analytics Mania: track clicks with GA4 and GTM
5. Google Analytics Help: engagement rate and bounce rate
6. Nice Looking Data: GA4 data retention settings
7. Google Analytics Help: Search Console links
8. Google Business Profile Help: performance metrics
9. Sterling Sky: interpreting GBP performance
10. Meta for Developers: Pixel standard events reference
11. AdsUploader: Meta Conversions API guide
12. Microsoft Learn: about Clarity
13. PPC Land: Data Studio name returns (April 2026)
14. Google Analytics Help: URL builders and UTM parameters
15. utm.new: Meta dynamic URL parameters
16. Google Ads Help: auto-tagging
17. Boei: tracking WhatsApp clicks with GTM
18. Google Ads Help: Google forwarding numbers (country list)
19. Google Ads Help: tracking calls to a number on your website
20. Google Ads Help: tracking call clicks
21. CallRail: countries served
22. Google Ads Help: local actions conversions
23. Google Ads Help: offline conversion imports
24. Google Ads Help: upgrade to enhanced conversions for leads
25. Google Ads Help: configure the Google tag for enhanced conversions for leads
26. CustomerLabs: Meta offline conversions after the Offline Conversions API
27. AWS docs: Meta Conversions API for business messaging
28. Google Analytics Help: attribution settings
29. Search Engine Land: Google retires attribution models
30. Google Ads Help: conversion windows
31. Nice Looking Data: why GA4 and Google Ads conversions don't match
32. Jon Loomer: click-through attribution now means link clicks
33. Jon Loomer: Meta ads attribution 2026
34. Jon Loomer: Aggregated Event Measurement tab removed
35. KVKK: Çerez Uygulamaları Hakkında Rehber (PDF)
36. Erdem & Erdem: KVKK updates cookie guide (July 2025)
37. Mondaq: KVKK cookie guide compliance roadmap
38. DESAFE: cookie guide published (Dec 2024)
39. KP Law: cookie guide summary
40. Güneş Partners: cross-border transfer under Law 7499
41. KVKK: guide on transferring personal data abroad
42. Anadolu Ajansı: KVKK announcement on third-party data for advertising (July 2026)
43. Simo Ahava: Consent Mode v2 for Google tags
44. Google Ads Help: about Consent Mode
45. Güneş Partners: what is İYS
46. Analytics Mania: introduction to server-side tagging
47. Loves Data: Google tag gateway
48. Google Ads Help: Google tag gateway for advertisers
49. StatCounter: search engine market share, Türkiye