A quick primer
The tag status: Active, Inactive, or Unverified, or Needs Attention, points directly to a tagging problem. Tag Diagnostics scans site tags with a quality report. The conversion tracking compatibility rate shows share of clicks trackable with a first-party cookie.
Settings staying the same doesn't guarantee the traffic mix stayed the same, especially with automated distribution across geography and channels.
What to check before you touch anything
- Conversion tag status.
- Tag Diagnostics for a new page missing a tag.
- Conversion tracking compatibility rate.
- Whether the traffic mix stayed the same by geography, semantics, and channel.
- Whether the drop coincided with a domain migration or redirects.
Possible approaches
- Fix a tag problem first, before looking at the ads.
- Check flagged pages for a missing tag.
- Move to current sitewide tagging if compatibility is below 100 percent.
- Compare traffic composition before and after the drop. DataMind builds that comparison automatically, a step most teams skip, letting a mix shift go unnoticed for weeks.
- Use a session recording tool (a category that includes Microsoft Clarity) to watch sessions from right after the drop began.
- Set up ongoing monitoring, not a one-time check.