Overview
This Framework provides a structured approach to validate your Adobe Analytics implementation, which is crucial for ensuring data quality, maximizing the investment of your marketing spend, and driving informed decision-making across the organization.
Each Framework aligns with ObservePoint capabilities, but it will also include recommended processes, documents, and policies that we recommend an organization consider in their pursuit of excellence.
Framework
This Framework is organized into the following Policies:
Tag Health
Tag Implementation
Data Layer
Identity Management
Page Behavior
Privacy Compliance
Documentation & Processes
Each policy contains individual Checks.
For each Check, we will include links to pre-built reports in the ObservePoint Platform and an implementation & remediation guide.
Each check will be accompanied with an icon.
The ✅ icon represents a Check is out of the box available by just running an Audit.
The 🛠️ ✅ icons represent a Check that requires additional configuration.
In addition to checks, there are recommended documents (📄) and processes (⚖️) we encourage you to maintain as they are part of an effective governance program.
Scope & Frequency
Before diving into specifics of each policy, we want to provide our recommendation around scope and frequency of validating your Adobe Analytics implementation.
Frequency | Scope | Goal |
Daily | 10-100 most critical pages (highest traffic / most strategic) | Confirm measurement coverage on most strategic pages |
Every Deployment | 10-15% sample | Ensure new website code or TMS deployment hasn't broken existing measurement |
Quarterly | 100% of pages | Some pages may not be reported as high traffic because tags are missing. Ensure total coverage. |
If you find that you are having trouble determining how many pages exist on a domain, ask your Success Manager or our Support Team and ask about running a Site Census scan.
If you have additional question regarding our recommendation, contact our team.
Tag Health
This policy represents checks that pertain to the health of the Adobe Analytics Tag behavior.
✅ Adobe Analytics Tags return a "Success" status code
When an Adobe Analytics tag does not return a "Success" (200) status code, it means you the tag was incorrectly implemented and data was not collected which can lead to lack of overall trust in Adobe Analytics reporting for an organization.
Report in ObservePoint: Pages with Broken Adobe Analytics Tags
Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link
✅ No Console Errors related to Adobe Analytics Tags
Similar to the check above, console errors associated with Adobe Analytics requests mean that the tag was incorrectly implemented and data was not collected which can lead to lack of overall trust in Adobe Analytics reporting for an organization.
Report in ObservePoint: Pages with Adobe Analytics Browser Console Errors
Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)
✅ No Console Warnings related to Adobe Analytics Tags
Console warnings associated with Adobe Analytics requests mean that the tag could be implemented incorrectly. The Warning message will provide more context.
Report in ObservePoint: Pages with Adobe Analytics Browser Console Warnings
Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)
✅ Adobe Analytics tags load in under 500 ms
Adobe Analytics tags should not tag longer than 500 ms to load. This ensure that impact on page performance is mitigated and data loss is avoided.
Report in ObservePoint: Pages with Adobe Analytics load times over 500 ms
Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)
Tag Implementation
This policy represents checks that pertain to how the Adobe Analytics Tag is implemented for measurement of different events.
✅ All pages fire an Adobe Analytics Tag
All pages should have Adobe Analytics tags implemented on them to ensure the entire customer journey is accurately reflected in Adobe Analytics reporting.
Report in ObservePoint: Pages missing Adobe Analytics
Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)
✅ Adobe Analytics Data is sent to the correct report suite
When Adobe Analytics data is sent to the wrong report suite, it can render some reports completely useless. It's critical that when you set up test report suites in lower environments, those test report suite ids do not end up on production pages.
Report in ObservePoint: Report Suite Ids for each Domain
Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)
🛠️ ✅ Adobe Analytics interaction events capture correct variables
Correct data capture is critical for segmentation and general analysis in Adobe Analytics reporting. Incorrect event mapping or loss of event attributes will leave you misinformed and lead to reduced conversion event context.
Report in ObservePoint: See Guide Below
Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)
✅ Adobe Analytics Tags are not duplicated
When Adobe Analytics tags are duplicated, event data is inflated. The result is pages may appear to be converting at 50% of their actual conversion rate and some pages may appear to be have 100% more traffic than reality. This dramatically impacts the perceived customer journey and gives false readings on performance of campaigns.
Report in ObservePoint: Pages with Duplicate Adobe Analytics Tags
Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)
✅ Adobe Analytics Tags fire at optimal time
Precise Adobe Analytics tag timing is essential because firing too early or too late results in data discrepancies, such as "Unspecified" variables, inflated conversion rates, and broken session attribution. Misaligned firing also poses significant risks to privacy compliance and can lead to under-reporting if tags fail to sync correctly with consent frameworks or page redirects. Furthermore, optimized tag execution ensures data integrity without compromising site performance or losing "hits" due to high latency and rapid user navigation.
Report in ObservePoint: Pages with Adobe Analytics Tags firing after Largest Contentful Paint
Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)
✅ Adobe Analytics Tags only include ASCII characters
To ensure reliable transport and data integrity, Adobe Analytics payloads must use URL-safe, ASCII-compatible characters to prevent browsers, proxies, or middleboxes from corrupting or blocking malformed requests. Maintaining strict character standards is vital for downstream identity stitching in Adobe Experience Platform (AEP), as non-standard encoding causes exact-string-match failures that lead to fragmented or duplicate profiles in the Unified Profile Service.
Report in ObservePoint: Pages with Adobe Analytics capturing non-ASCII characters
Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)
🛠️ ✅ Adobe Analytics Tags correctly capture campaign tracking codes
Correctly capturing campaign tracking codes is essential because they serve as the foundational key for attributing conversions and revenue to specific marketing efforts across different channels. Without accurate campaign codes, Adobe Analytics cannot provide accurate attribution for campaigns which leads to flawed ROI analysis and the inability to optimize marketing spend based on actual performance.
Report in ObservePoint: See Guide Below
Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)
Identity Management
This policy represents checks that pertain to correct identity recognition and management.
✅ AMCV cookie is present on all pages
AMCV cookies are essential because they provide a stable, first-party Experience Cloud ID (ECID) that ensures consistent visitor recognition and data stitching across the entire Adobe ecosystem. Without these cookies present on every page, identity fragmentation occurs, leading to inaccurate visitor counts, unreliable customer journey analysis, and disjointed user experiences as known visitors are incorrectly treated as anonymous.
Report in ObservePoint: Pages with AMCV cookie (Compare with full URL list to find pages missing the cookie)
Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)
Data Layer
This policy represents checks that pertain to correct Data Layer implementation. If you use a custom data layer name, be sure to provide it in our Data Layer settings.
✅ Data Layer object is present on all pages
A consistent, site-wide data layer is the "single source of truth" that bridges the gap between your website's raw code and Adobe Analytics. Without it, your tracking becomes a fragile game of "guesswork" based on unpredictable page elements.
Report in ObservePoint: Pages missing Data Layer
Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)
🛠️ ✅ Data Layer variables correctly map to Adobe Analytics tags
Validating the mapping between your data layer and Adobe Analytics is the only way to ensure that the "raw" data on your website is actually being translated into "actionable" insights in your reports. Even if your data layer is perfect, a mapping error can lead to expensive data gaps or permanent corruption of your historical records.
Report in ObservePoint: See Guide Below
Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)
Page Behavior
This policy represents checks that pertain to page behavior that support analytics.
✅ Query parameters persist through redirects
Maintaining query parameters through redirects is critical because these parameters are the "DNA" of your marketing attribution. When a server redirect strips these parameters away, Adobe Analytics loses the connection between the user's click and the resulting site activity.
Report in ObservePoint: Pages that lose query parameters after redirects
Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)
Privacy Compliance
This policy represents checks that pertain to appropriate response to privacy regulations.
🛠️ ✅ Adobe Analytics Tags honor consent
Honoring consent is not just a best practice, it is a technical and legal requirement for Adobe Analytics to operate within the modern digital landscape. When your tags respect user choices, they protect your business from litigation, maintain data integrity, and build consumer trust.
Report in ObservePoint: See Guide Below
Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)
🛠️ ✅ Adobe Analytics Tags do not collect PII or PHI
It is critical that Adobe Analytics tags are configured to avoid collecting Personally Identifiable Information (PII) or Protected Health Information (PHI) because the platform is primarily designed for aggregate behavioral analysis, not as a secure repository for sensitive personal data. Injecting PII/PHI into your analytics hits creates significant legal, financial, and operational liabilities. Adobe strongly discourages it.
Report in ObservePoint: See Guide Below
Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)
Documentation & Processes
This policy represents recommended documents and processes pertaining to Adobe Analytics Implementation.
📄 Create and maintain a Business Requirements Document (BRD)
The BRD is the strategic foundation. It is important because it shifts the focus from "what can we track" to "what must we measure." Without a BRD, teams often implement tags that generate "data noise" without answering key business questions. It ensures that stakeholders and developers are aligned on the specific KPIs and business goals before any code is written.
Template: Link (coming soon)
Full Guide: Link (coming soon)
📄 Create & Maintain a Technical Specifications Document (TSD)
The TSD is the developer’s roadmap. It is important because it translates high-level business needs into technical reality (e.g., CSS selectors, data layer objects, and JavaScript triggers). A solid TSD prevents "guesswork" during implementation, reducing bugs and ensuring that the data layer is structured correctly to be consumed by Adobe Analytics.
Template: Link (coming soon)
Full Guide: Link (coming soon)
📄 Create and maintain a Solution Design Reference (SDR) Document
The SDR is the "Source of Truth" for your data map. It is important because it keeps a permanent record of which eVar, prop, and event is assigned to which data point. Without an SDR, analysts have no way of knowing what "eVar42" represents, leading to data overwrites, broken reports, and an inability to perform long-term historical analysis.
Template: Link (coming soon)
Full Guide: Link (coming soon)
📄 Create & Maintain a Taxonomy Guide
The Taxonomy Guide is the dictionary for your data. It is important because it defines the naming conventions (e.g., "lowercase only," "use hyphens instead of spaces") for values like campaign names and page categories. Consistent taxonomy ensures that your reports are clean and searchable; without it, your data becomes fragmented (e.g., "Email," "email," and "EMail" appearing as three separate line items).
Template: Link (coming soon)
Full Guide: Link (coming soon)
⚖️ Implement a "No SDR, No Tag" Policy
This policy is the governance firewall for your analytics environment. It is important because it prevents "tag bloat" and data corruption. By rejecting requests that lack a technical spec or a clear business "Why," you ensure that:
Privacy is protected: No rogue tags are capturing PII or firing without consent.
Performance is maintained: Only necessary scripts are loaded, keeping page speeds high.
Data remains actionable: Every hit being sent to Adobe has a pre-defined purpose and a place in the SDR, ensuring that you don't waste your server call budget on "junk" data.
Conclusion
This framework is not a comprehensive guide to everything that can or should be done to validate your Adobe Analytics implementation, but it is a solid foundation.
As ObservePoint unlocks more data and enhances it's platform, we will support more checks to be fully automated. Expect this framework to evolve in time and talk to our Customer Success if you have other checks you want to implement.
