Overview
When setting up Comparisons in an account, Match Criteria are critical to aligning tags such that our comparison is correct and we don't have any false positives.
Match Criteria
To set up match criteria, you'll need to go to the Configurations Tab and select the Tags – Primary and Comparisons Setup tab.
From here, you can add tags by searching them in the drop down. If you have already added tags, simply click the enable tags for comparison toggle next to the tag.
Note: By default all accounts can enable up to 3 tags for comparison, most of our clients will not need more. However, if you are interested in adding more or if you are a Standard or Read-Only user and need to make a change in this section, reach out to your Customer Success Manager.
After enabling a tag for comparisons, click the click to expand it and select Comparison Configuration. From here you can add variables to exclude from comparisons and variables use to match comparable tags.
Note: Exclusions can be configured here, but you can also exclude variables in the report
Recommended Variables for Matching
Not all variables make for good match criteria. If you assign the wrong variables, it could result in false positives in your comparison report.
Match criteria we recommend you choose include variables that have consistent values between runs and unique between tags.
Example: Here we set pev1 and pev2 as match criteria for the Adobe Analytics tag. You can see 3 Adobe Analytics tags were picked up.
If you hover over the fields in the Comparison Results column, you will see a tooltip revealing how the match criteria we selected distinguished the tags from each other. All of these had at least 1 unique value between the variables we chose and we expect the values to be consistent from run to run. Where pev1 and pev2 are equal to null, that is a page load tag, and where pev1 and pev2 have unique values, those are different event-based tags.
This table shows recommended match criteria variables for the most popular tags to compare:
Technology | Recommended Variables to Match Tags |
Adobe Analytics | pev1, pev2 |
Google Universal Analytics | t, ea, el, ec |
Tag & Variables Comparison Report
Once you have enabled tags for comparison and added variables to the match criteria, you will need to assign that comparison to an Audit and run it. After the Audit has been completed, you will be able to see the results in the Tag & Variables Comparison Report.
Conclusion
In summary, setting up match criteria is essential for accurate tag comparisons in your account. It prevents false positives in your reports. This guide helps you easily define match criteria, select the right variables, and monitor tags like Adobe Analytics and Google Universal Analytics. This process improves data quality and offers valuable insights via the Tag & Variables Comparison Report for better decision-making in digital analytics.