Justin Cutroni, Google Analytics evangelist, once said that there’s more to analytics than just adding a tag to a webpage (very true!). For many analytics practioners, that “more” comes in the form of quality assurance or QA tools. These tools are extension of various web development tools, used to confirm functionality of a tag as well as the website after a tag is installed, as well as other function checks at the browser.
Many analytics solutions have some level of diagnostic, but again, these are meant for once the analytics is in place, and are more about client side issues. Not all reporting covers server side issue, which can affect analytic performance as well.
Tag assistant is a Chrome plugin in that verifies Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics tags, as well as a few other enterprise-level Google advertising services in which a tag is used. The assistant provides a drop down menu when prompt that leads to a Google webpage with a list of diagnostic suggestions. There is also a Google Plus community that supports the tag assistant plugin with questions and answers.
Another Chrome plugin is GA Debugger. This plugin sends debug information to the Javascript console, a screen that appears alongside a webpage. The console is meant to show webpage elements while on-page, permitting developers to understand what is in the code.
Among the most well known tool among web analytic practitioners is a Google Analytics specific tool called WASP. Developed by Stephane Hamel, WASP also debugs code. There is a crawler functionality, meaning the debugger can crawls a site for issues. There is a plugin version which runs in the Chrome browser (and also works from within the Javascript console).
The point of each of these tools is to help audit issues that affect how a page loads in a browser. Minimizing problems at the browser can maximize visitor engagement at the website.
