6 Steps to Build an Effective and Valuable Data Tracking Plan

Making a plan for your product usage and analytics tracking can seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be.

Here’s 6 steps you should follow to create a comprehensive and effective product analytics tracking and implementation plan:

Step 1: Define Your Tracking Objectives

The first step in building a product analytics tracking and implementation plan is to define your tracking objectives; identifying the specific objectives you want to achieve through your plan, which should be tied to your business goals and KPIs.

Start by defining what you want to track. This will include user behaviour, events and actions,, and user data. You’ll want this data to cover your user journeys and paths your users can take through your product. If you’re not sure where to start, focus on your registration journey, purchase journey, and build from there.

It is important to define your objectives clearly and specifically. This will help you measure the success of your tracking plan and ensure that your efforts are aligned with your business goals. Remember, if the data you’re tracking isn’t linked to a KPI or metric, then it probably isn’t worth tracking.

Step 2: Map Out Your Tracking Requirements

Once you have defined your tracking objectives, you need to create a detailed plan for tracking user behaviours and events. This will probably involve working with developers to integrate tracking code or using a tag management system to manage implementation. Again this might sound daunting, but if you’ve done a good job at step 1, this shouldn’t be too big a problem.

You’ve listed the actions in step 1, now define where they should be tracked. Event A = Button Click 1, etc. List the properties you want to collect with each event, information about that user, more detail about the event your users are doing, anything that will help you later with more advanced analysis.

Your tracking plan should be detailed and specific. It should include information about the tracking code you will use, the data you will collect, and how you will analyze and report on this data.

Step 3: Implement Your Tracking Code

With your tracking plan in place, you can now implement the tracking code. This involves installing the tracking code on your website or product according to the plan you have created. Once again, you’ve done the hard work in the planning. You know what you want to collect, and where you’re collecting it from. This part should be easy.

There are several ways to implement your tracking code. You can work with your own developers to integrate the code, use a tag management system to manage implementation (collect everything), or use a 3rd party company that can be recommended by your analytics platform provider.

Here I would caution against tracking everything through a tag management system. You’ve done the hard work planning your implementation, you can be specific and accurate with what you want to gather, because you know what you’re doing.

Step 4: Test Your Code

Testing is a critical step in the tracking and implementation process. You need to test the tracking code to ensure that it is working properly and that the data is being collected accurately.

Use the product in the same way your customers would. Did you see the data coming through that you expected? Did all the properties come through? Is anything missing?

Verify that the data is being collected accurately and that the KPIs are being calculated correctly. If you find any issues, make sure to address them before moving on to the next step.

Step 5: Documentation and Governance

Once your tracking plan and code have been implemented and tested, it is important to establish documentation and governance processes. This will ensure that your tracking plan is being maintained and updated as needed.

You’ve worked hard to put your tracking in place, you don’t want it to become messy and unusable.

Create documentation that outlines your tracking plan, including tracking requirements, code implementation, and testing results. This will help ensure that your tracking plan is clear and consistent across all stakeholders. Someone should be able to come to your documentation with no knowledge of what you’ve done, and still understand where to go to find the data and information they need.

Establish governance processes that ensure that the tracking plan is being followed and updated as needed. This may involve regular reviews of the tracking plan, training for stakeholders, and ongoing monitoring and optimisation.

Data Governance is not sexy, but is incredibly important to maintain your data integrity.

Good data in = good decisions out.

Step 6: Monitor and Optimise

The final step in the tracking and implementation process is to monitor and optimise your tracking plan.

Regularly review your tracking plan and refine it as needed. Use your analytics data to identify areas of improvement and make data-driven decisions about how to optimize your product or website.

Are the KPIs I defined in step 1 still relevant to me today?

Optimisation will involve making changes to the user experience, adjusting the tracking plan, or improving the website or product functionality. By continuously monitoring and optimising your tracking plan, you can ensure that you are collecting the right data to drive your business forward.

In addition to monitoring and optimisation, it’s also important to regularly communicate your tracking plan and results to stakeholders. This may include executive leadership, product managers, and developers. Anyone who is going to use the data and see the benefit of the metrics and KPIs should be aware of what you’re doing, and where they can go to see what your data means.

Regular communication ensures that everyone is aligned around the goals and objectives of the tracking plan, and that everyone is working together to achieve them.

Quick Review

Building a product analytics tracking and implementation plan is a critical step in understanding user behaviour and improving your product or website. By following these 6 easy steps, you can create a comprehensive and effective tracking plan that is aligned with your business goals and objectives.

Remember to define your tracking objectives, map out tracking requirements, implement tracking code, test the tracking code, establish documentation and governance, and monitor and optimize your tracking plan.

It might seem daunting, but it should be easy.