Ga4 Monitor

GA4 Monitor

A recurring weekly check on a GA4 property. It confirms data is still flowing, reports traffic and conversions week-over-week, and — most importantly — catches the silent failure mode: a key event that stopped firing because a tag broke.

Requires: Cogny Agent subscription ($9/mo) — Sign up

Designed to be scheduled weekly via /loop or /schedule.

Works with

Fathom Analytics here is the web analytics product, not the Fathom call recorder. Enhanced when connected, with any of them: Shopify / WooCommerce orders and PostHog / Mixpanel sign-ups confirm whether a conversion drop is real or a tracking break (Step 4). Several connected: run the checks on each and show them side by side, never summed.

Prerequisites Check

If no mcp__cogny__* tools exist (no list_integrations, no cogny_status), print this and stop:

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GA4 Monitor needs your marketing data through Cogny's MCP gateway.

1. Sign up at https://cogny.com and connect Google Analytics 4 (or Plausible, Fathom
   Analytics, Simple Analytics or Adobe Analytics).
2. Add Cogny to .mcp.json in your project:
   {"mcpServers": {"cogny": {"type": "http", "url": "https://app.cogny.com/mcp"}}}
3. Restart Claude Code; it opens a browser for the OAuth login on first use.

Nothing to run without Cogny.

Otherwise call list_integrations once. Use every healthy web-analytics provider from the table above; name any broken one. health_status misses revoked tokens, so make one cheap read per provider (GA4 tool_list_account_summaries, Adobe list_report_suites, Fathom list_sites, …): a 401, Forbidden or scope error is 🔴 "reconnect ", with no retry. If a tool named here is missing, call refresh_mcp_discovery once; new tools only load after the client reconnects, so skip that check this run and mark it ⚠ "needs reconnect". If no web-analytics provider is connected, say "connect Google Analytics 4 (or Plausible, Fathom, Simple Analytics, Adobe) in Cogny" and stop.

Usage

/ga4-monitor — weekly health check of the connected GA4 property.

For a full one-time review, run /ga4-audit. This is the light weekly rhythm.

Steps

1. Read the prior snapshot

Call read_context_node on insights/ga4/monitor/latest. If present, it holds last week's numbers — report every metric as a delta against it. If absent, this is the first run: report absolutes and note deltas begin next week.

Tool blocks below are GA4. For other providers use the "Works with" row; what differs is noted in each step.

2. Data-flow heartbeat

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tool_run_realtime_report   (property_id, metrics: activeUsers)

If realtime shows zero active users on a site with normal traffic, tagging may be down. Note it, but confirm against the 7-day report before alarming.

Other providers: Plausible__realtime_visitors (site_id), Fathom_Analytics__current_visitors (site_id). Simple and Adobe have no realtime tool, so use today's (Simple stats) or yesterday's (Adobe run_report) totals instead.

3. Traffic & engagement (last 7d vs prior 7d)

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tool_run_report   (property_id,
  date_ranges: [{"startDate": "7daysAgo", "endDate": "yesterday"},
                {"startDate": "14daysAgo", "endDate": "8daysAgo"}],
  metrics: ["sessions", "totalUsers", "newUsers", "engagementRate", "averageSessionDuration"])

Pin the windows exactly like this: both are 7 full days and today's partial day is excluded, so the delta isn't skewed. Use the same two ranges in steps 4 and 5, and the same calendar dates for other providers. Report each metric with its WoW delta.

Map "sessions" to visits and "users" to visitors. These tools have no engagement rate; report bounce rate instead and say so.

4. Key-event conversions (the critical check)

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tool_list_conversion_events   (property_id)
tool_run_report   (property_id, same two date_ranges as step 3,
  dimensions: eventName,
  metrics: eventCount, keyEvents, totalRevenue)

Use keyEvents, not the deprecated conversions metric. Join the report against tool_list_conversion_events, not the other way round: a key event with zero events in both weeks returns no row at all, so start from the key-event list and fill missing rows with 0. A key event at 0 / 0 is 🟡 "never fires" (a dead or misnamed event; event names are case-sensitive, so check /gtm-audit for a first_login vs FirstLogin mismatch).

🔴 Alert if any key event recorded conversions last week and zero this week — the tag or GTM trigger has almost certainly broken. This is the single most important check in the skill.

🟡 Flag key events that dropped >50% WoW without an obvious traffic cause.

Same check on other providers, run on each conversion:

Confirm a drop against the source of truth (enhanced when connected). Before calling a drop a tracking break, check the same two weeks where the conversion really happens: Shopify tool_list_orders (query_filter: "created_at:>=YYYY-MM-DD") or WooCommerce get_sales_report (date_min, date_max) for orders; PostHog list_insights (project_id, search: "signup") → get_insight, or Mixpanel run_segmentation (event, from_date, to_date) for sign-ups. Truth flat + analytics down = 🔴 tracking break. Both down = a real demand drop; say so and skip the tracking alarm.

Only GA4 exposes a key-event config (tool_list_conversion_events). For the others, say in the output that "key event" means the goals or events the user named.

5. Channel mix

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tool_run_report   (property_id, same two date_ranges as step 3,
  dimensions: sessionDefaultChannelGroup,
  metrics: sessions, keyEvents)

🟡 Alert on:

• A jump in Unassigned / (not set) sessions — UTMs broke somewhere
• A Direct spike — often a tagging or redirect problem
• A channel that fell off a cliff (campaign ended, or tracking lost)

Other providers: Plausible breakdown (visit:source, and visit:utm_campaign for the UTM check), Fathom aggregate (field_grouping: referrer_hostname), Simple referrers, Adobe run_report on your marketing-channel dimension (list_dimensions if unsure). These group by source rather than GA4's channel groups, so the Unassigned check becomes "a jump in direct / no-referrer visits".

6. Output

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GA4 Monitor — [Property Name] ([Provider])
Week of [YYYY-MM-DD] – [YYYY-MM-DD]

⚠️  Needs attention this week
- [Critical/important first, or "Nothing — data is flowing clean."]

Traffic (7d vs prior 7d)
- Sessions ........ XX,XXX  (+/-X% WoW)
- Users ........... XX,XXX  (+/-X% WoW)
- Engagement rate . XX%     (+/-X pts WoW)

Conversions (7d vs prior 7d)
| Key event | This week | Last week | WoW | Revenue |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|-----|---------|

Channel mix
| Channel | Sessions (WoW) | Conv (WoW) |
|---------|----------------|------------|

Recommended actions
1. ...

7. Save this week's snapshot

Call write_context_node on insights/ga4/monitor/latest (other providers: insights/<provider>/monitor/latest, e.g. insights/plausible/monitor/latest) with this week's metrics (sessions, users, engagement, per-key-event conversions + revenue, channel mix) so next week can compute deltas. Also write a dated copy to insights/ga4/monitor/<YYYY-MM-DD>.

8. Record findings — selectively

Only file a create_finding for genuine problems — a key event that stopped, a channel that collapsed, a (not set) spike. A clean week files nothing.

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{
  "title": "GA4 key event 'generate_lead' dropped to 0 this week",
  "body": "'generate_lead' recorded 96 conversions last week and 0 this week while sessions held steady. The form tag or its GTM trigger has broken. Check GTM Preview on the form page and the GA4 DebugView.",
  "action_type": "tracking_break",
  "expected_outcome": "Lead tracking restored; Ads bidding gets signal again",
  "estimated_impact_usd": 0,
  "priority": "critical"
}

Action types: tracking_break, data_quality, conversion_setup, channel_anomaly.

Recording findings

Use create_ticket when the workspace has it (Cloud) and create_finding otherwise (Solo). The fields differ; see section 2 of ../marketing-engineer/references/mcp-routing.md.

Critical rules

1. Trends over snapshots. Every metric ships with a WoW delta.
2. A key event at zero is critical — it usually means a broken tag, and it corrupts Ads bidding too. Cross-check /gtm-monitor if GTM is connected.
3. Lead with what's broken. A clean week is one short paragraph.
4. Read-only. Surface issues; never change the property.
5. Name the provider on every number. Plausible visitors, Fathom uniques and GA4 users are counted differently; never add them together.