Practical Guide: How to Audit GA4 and UTMs Before Black Friday
A 7-step walkthrough to audit your UTMs, channel groupings, Consent Mode, and purchase tracking in GA4 before the sales rush.
by Eleonora Diniz
This article was automatically translated by Galiléo.
Black Friday is right around the corner, and the question we hear most often is: where should I even start with my tracking audit? This guide breaks down the exact order we follow in our Dr. Métricas audits, from most to least critical.
If you haven't yet, check out our piece on the 5 silent tracking errors first—it breaks down why every step below matters.
Step 1. List every channel you plan to run
Before opening GA4, sketch out a simple list: paid media (Google, Meta, TikTok, Pinterest), email, WhatsApp, influencers, affiliates, and organic. Every single channel needs a clearly defined utm_source and utm_medium standard.
Step 2. Define your campaign's UTM taxonomy
- utm_source: who is sending the traffic (google, meta, email, whatsapp)
- utm_medium: the media type (cpc, paid_social, email, ai-assistant)
- utm_campaign: a unique name for each phase (bf26_warmup, bf26_week, bf26_cybermonday)
- Everything in lowercase, with no accents or spaces
Step 3. Validate every link before going live
Run every link through the Dr. Métricas UTM Check-up. It flags uppercase characters, missing parameters, unrecognized mediums, and which GA4 default channel group the traffic will fall into.
Step 4. Review your channel report for the last 30 days
In GA4, go to Traffic Acquisition and inspect three specific lines: Unassigned, Direct, and Referral. A high Unassigned count points to non-standard UTMs. A spike in Direct might hide WhatsApp or social stories missing tracking links. Referral showing chatgpt.com should map to AI Assistant; perplexity.ai might still pop up under Referral since it's not yet on Google's default assistant list.
Step 5. Test Consent Mode with and without opt-in
Open your site in an incognito window, reject cookies, and go all the way to the cart. Then do it again, this time accepting them. Use GA4's DebugView to verify that events are firing correctly in both scenarios based on your implementation.
Step 6. Place a test order and verify the purchase event
- The purchase event fires strictly once per order
- The transaction_id matches the gateway's order ID
- Value and currency match the actual order details
- Delayed payment approvals (like Pix or bank slips) still get recorded even if the tab is closed
If your purchase count in GA4 doesn't match your payment gateway, not a single ROAS metric on your dashboard can be trusted.
Step 7. Set up a 3-minute daily sanity check
| Check | Where to look | Warning sign |
|---|---|---|
| New UTMs | UTM Check-up | Unrecognized medium |
| Unassigned | Traffic Acquisition | Sudden spike |
| Purchases vs. Orders | GA4 vs. Payment Gateway | Discrepancy over 5% |
| Ad Spend | Performance Dashboard | Channel missing imported cost |
Download the full checklist
Every single step from this guide is organized in a ready-to-use spreadsheet you can roll out across every account before the rush.
Clean data is just the start. Making the right calls is everything else.
In the Mentoria Black Friday Blindada, Eleonora Diniz leads 4 live group sessions (Nov 11, Nov 16, Nov 18, and Nov 23 at 4 PM BRT), breaking down how to turn raw data into smart budget allocation before, during, and after the event. Includes 12 months of the Platinum plan. R$ 997 via Pix or 12x R$ 97.
