Setting Up Audits - Tag Insight Documentation

Overview

Audits are the heart of Tag Insight’s monitoring capabilities. They continuously compare your live tracking implementation against your tracking plan, alerting you to any discrepancies or issues.

How audits work

Unlike traditional tools that use robots, Tag Insight audits analyze real user traffic, providing comprehensive coverage of all user journeys.

The audit process

Traffic Collection

The Tag Insight pixel captures data layer events from real user traffic

Validation

Each event is validated against your tracking plan rules

Issue Detection

Any discrepancies are identified and categorized

Alert Generation

Notifications are sent based on your alert configuration

Reporting

Detailed reports show all issues found during the audit period

Creating your first audit

Quick setup

Navigate to Audits

From your project, go to Monitoring > Audits

Click New Audit

Select + New Audit to configure your audit

Basic Configuration

Name: “Daily Production Audit”
Tracking Plan: Select your active tracking plan
Schedule: Daily at 9:00 AM

Save and Activate

Review settings and activate your audit

Audit configuration options

Schedule types

Continuous
Scheduled
On-Demand

Real-time monitoring of all trafficBest for:

Production environments
Critical tracking
Immediate issue detection

{
  type: "continuous",
  sampling: "100%",
  alertDelay: "5 minutes"
}

Run at specific timesBest for:

Regular health checks
Staging environments
Cost optimization

{
  type: "scheduled",
  frequency: "daily",
  time: "09:00",
  duration: "1 hour"
}

Manual trigger onlyBest for:

Pre-release testing
Debugging specific issues
Ad-hoc validation

{
  type: "manual",
  defaultDuration: "30 minutes"
}

Frequency options

For scheduled audits, choose:

Hourly: Every hour on the hour
Daily: Once per day at specified time
Weekly: Specific days and times
Monthly: Specific date and time
Custom: Cron expression for complex schedules

Scope configuration

Define what to audit:

Full Tracking Plan

Monitor all events and variables in your tracking plan

scope: {
  type: "full",
  trackingPlan: "main-plan-v2"
}

Specific Events

Focus on critical events only

scope: {
  type: "events",
  events: ["purchase", "add_to_cart", "checkout_start"]
}

Event Categories

Monitor events by category

scope: {
  type: "category",
  categories: ["ecommerce", "critical"]
}

URL Patterns

Audit specific pages or sections

scope: {
  type: "urls",
  patterns: ["/checkout/*", "/products/*"]
}

Sampling strategies

Choose how much traffic to analyze:

Sampling options

100% Traffic

Analyze all events

Most comprehensive
Higher cost
Best for critical tracking

Percentage Sampling

Analyze a percentage

Cost-effective
Statistically significant
Good for high-traffic sites

Event Sampling

Sample by event count

Fixed number of events
Predictable costs
Good for testing

Smart Sampling

AI-optimized sampling

Focuses on anomalies
Efficient coverage
Best value

Sampling configuration

// 100% sampling for critical events
{
  sampling: {
    default: "10%",
    overrides: {
      "purchase": "100%",
      "payment_error": "100%",
      "page_view": "1%"
    }
  }
}

Alert configuration

Alert channels

Email Alerts

Default notification method

Instant notifications
Detailed issue reports
Multiple recipients

Slack Integration

Real-time team notifications

Channel-specific alerts
Severity-based routing
Interactive responses

Alert rules

Configure when to send alerts:

Threshold-Based
Event-Specific
Pattern-Based

alerts: {
  rules: [{
    condition: "error_rate > 5%",
    severity: "critical",
    channels: ["email", "slack"]
  }]
}

alerts: {
  rules: [{
    event: "purchase",
    condition: "any_error",
    severity: "critical",
    channels: ["email", "pagerduty"]
  }]
}

alerts: {
  rules: [{
    pattern: "missing_variable",
    variable: "transaction_id",
    severity: "high",
    channels: ["email"]
  }]
}

Alert severity levels

Critical: Immediate attention required (purchase tracking broken)
High: Important issues (key events affected)
Medium: Should be addressed soon (non-critical events)
Low: Informational (minor validation issues)

Advanced audit features

Exclusion rules

Prevent false positives by excluding:

URL Exclusions

exclusions: {
  urls: [
    "/admin/*",
    "/test/*",
    "*/preview/*"
  ]
}

User Agent Exclusions

exclusions: {
  userAgents: [
    "Googlebot",
    "internal-monitoring",
    "synthetic-tests"
  ]
}

IP Exclusions

exclusions: {
  ips: [
    "192.168.1.0/24",
    "10.0.0.0/8"
  ]
}

Custom validation rules

Add business-specific validation:

customRules: [{
  name: "Valid Transaction ID Format",
  applies_to: "purchase",
  validation: "transaction_id.match(/^TXN-[0-9]{10}$/)",
  severity: "high"
}]

Baseline comparison

Compare against historical data:

baseline: {
  enabled: true,
  period: "last_7_days",
  deviation_threshold: "20%",
  alert_on_anomaly: true
}

Audit reports

Report components

Each audit report includes:

Summary Statistics
- Total events analyzed
- Error rate
- Top issues
- Trend analysis
Issue Details
- Specific errors found
- Affected pages/events
- Sample data layers
- Fix recommendations
Performance Metrics
- Audit duration
- Events per second
- Coverage statistics

Reading audit reports

Focus on the “Critical Issues” section first - these have the highest business impact.

Issue types

Missing Events: Expected events not firing
Missing Variables: Required variables absent
Invalid Values: Values don’t match validation rules
Type Mismatches: Wrong data types (string vs number)
Pattern Violations: Values don’t match expected patterns

Best practices

Audit strategy

Start with Critical Events

Begin monitoring purchase and key conversion events

Expand Coverage

Gradually add more events as confidence grows

Optimize Sampling

Adjust sampling based on traffic and budget

Refine Alerts

Tune alert rules to reduce noise

Recommended configurations

E-commerce sites

{
  name: "E-commerce Critical Path",
  schedule: "continuous",
  sampling: {
    default: "10%",
    purchase_events: "100%"
  },
  alerts: {
    purchase_errors: "critical",
    cart_errors: "high",
    other: "medium"
  }
}

Media sites

{
  name: "Content Engagement Tracking",
  schedule: "hourly",
  sampling: "5%",
  focus: ["page_view", "article_read", "video_play"],
  baseline_comparison: true
}

SaaS applications

{
  name: "User Journey Monitoring",
  schedule: "continuous",
  sampling: "25%",
  events: ["signup", "feature_use", "subscription_change"],
  alert_channels: ["slack", "pagerduty"]
}

Troubleshooting

Common issues

No Data in Audit Reports

Verify pixel is installed and active
Check audit schedule hasn’t started yet
Ensure traffic is reaching monitored pages

Too Many False Positives

Review and update validation rules
Add appropriate exclusions
Consider optional vs required variables

Missing Critical Issues

Increase sampling rate
Verify tracking plan is complete
Check scope configuration

Next steps

Configure Alerts

Set up alert rules and notifications

Understand Reports

Learn to interpret audit reports

Data Layer Collector

Set up data layer logging

Best Practices

Optimize your audit configuration

Getting started

Platform overview

Tracking plans

Monitoring & audits

Implementation

​Overview

​How audits work

​The audit process

​Creating your first audit

​Quick setup

​Audit configuration options

​Schedule types

​Frequency options

​Scope configuration

​Sampling strategies

​Sampling options

100% Traffic

Percentage Sampling

Event Sampling

Smart Sampling

​Sampling configuration

​Alert configuration

​Alert channels

​Alert rules

​Alert severity levels

​Advanced audit features

​Exclusion rules

​Custom validation rules

​Baseline comparison

​Audit reports

​Report components

​Reading audit reports

​Issue types

​Best practices

​Audit strategy

​Recommended configurations

​E-commerce sites

​Media sites

​SaaS applications

​Troubleshooting

​Common issues

​Next steps

Configure Alerts

Understand Reports

Data Layer Collector

Best Practices

Overview

How audits work

The audit process

Creating your first audit

Quick setup

Audit configuration options

Schedule types

Frequency options

Scope configuration

Sampling strategies

Sampling options

Sampling configuration

Alert configuration

Alert channels

Alert rules

Alert severity levels

Advanced audit features

Exclusion rules

Custom validation rules

Baseline comparison

Audit reports

Report components

Reading audit reports

Issue types

Best practices

Audit strategy

Recommended configurations

E-commerce sites

Media sites

SaaS applications

Troubleshooting

Common issues

Next steps