Testing Methodology

After completing the steps in the installation article, you are ready to test. In order to validate this implementation, prior to submitting these changes, we must confirm that the two impacted Tags fire as expected and send the expected data. The following tools may be used concurrently to test.  

1. Google Tag Assistant
2. Google DevTools
3. (optional) GA4 DebuggerView

The following sections detail how to use each tool to validate your implementation. Sections 1 & 2 can be done simultaneously. 

Google Tag Assistant

From within the GTM workspace where ChannelMix Conversion Tracking dependencies have been installed, click the Preview button or visit https://tagassistant.google.com/ directly, then enter the URL of your site to open a new tab through Tag Assistant. This will allow you to see the how the tags fire corresponding with user interactions with your site. 

After connecting through the previous steps, you should perform the conversion interactions (e.g. form submission) in order to trigger the ChannelMix Conversion Tag. 

Return to the tag Assistant to ensure that the tag fired when expected and values were captured for ChannelMix Conversion ID and ChannelMix Client ID. Shown below, the "GA4 - ChannelMix Conversion" Tag is selected on the step where it fired and variables are displayed as Values to review the values sent to GA. 

After confirming that the tag has fired as expected, confirm that the ChannelMix Conversion ID has been reset. Do this by inspecting the variable on the conversion step and then on the subsequent step to confirm the value has changed. 

Page Views - inspect the tag that sends the event name "page_view" (in some cases the Configuration Tag) to ensure that the User Property "ChannelMix Client ID" is included and sends a value, the same as the Conversion Tag above. 

If page views are sent form a different Tag, ensure that said tag is firing as expected and send a value for "channelmix_client_id" - set as a User Property.

Google DevTools

• Right-click anywhere on the page and choose "Inspect" from the menu to open Chrome DevTools, or:
  • Mac: Cmd + Option + J
  • Windows: Ctrl + Shift + J
• Within DevTools, choose the Network tab.
• Check "Preserve log" - you may need to do this before you trigger the conversion.
• Input this string into the search field to view relevant network requests: "collect?"
• From here, execute the conversion action (e.g. form submission) and look for the GA4 network request.

Search through the resultant requests and ensure that the ChannelMix event fired. You should see "en: channelmix_conversion" in the list of Payload Query String Parameters. This represents the Event name set in GTM and validates that the event data was sent to GA.

Ensure that this network request is successful, occurs when expected, and only fires once per conversion. Failed requests appear red in DevTools.

GA4 DebuggerView

From within your GA4 Property, navigate to ADMIN > DebugView.

When you have your site opened through Google Tag Assistant (GTM Preview) and the box is checked to include the debug signal, you will enable the DebugView as shown below. 

1. Ensure that values are included for both the ChannelMix Conversion ID (Event Parameter) and the ChannelMix Client ID (User Property).
2. If you have triggered more than one conversion, ensure that the Conversion ID is unique for each - only the second segment of the ID should change.