For Chuck E Cheese, we needed reliable analytics to advocate for UX improvements and measure new feature implementation. Here’s how I created a Google Tag Manager components system to ensure better user behavior tracking on site.
Background: In our initial UX audit for Chuck E. Cheese, we noticed that there was disconnect between multiple metrics and user actions in their analytics. After digging more, we realized the problem was attributed to a convulated tracking structure. Working with the CEC team, the in-house strategy and digital teams, as well and my own UX team’s input, I created a new naming convention and publishing process for all tracking components in Google Tag Manager.
My Roles
Initial design research
UX Audit
Analytics Audit
Google Tag Manager Audit
Initial design research
UX Audit
Analytics Audit
Google Tag Manager Audit
Deliverables
Service Blueprint
Component Naming Rules Event tagging flow
Service Blueprint
Component Naming Rules Event tagging flow
ResponsibilitiesDiscovered analytics discrepancies and defined key customer contact points to ensure measurement.
Mapped out current conversion tracking as well as proposed new conversion tracking.
Created tag naming rules and conventions using research from user interviews (mostly client-side and agency teams that would be using analytics).
Made all tracking changes and shared new documentation with other teams for cross team compatibility. Documentated all GTM changes.
Created tag naming rules and conventions using research from user interviews (mostly client-side and agency teams that would be using analytics).
Made all tracking changes and shared new documentation with other teams for cross team compatibility. Documentated all GTM changes.
An example of the original tag flow - specific to the booking funnel. As you can see, all tracking was tied to one event tag which had a vague name. As the name suggests, it would fire with any click in the booking funnel, creating thousands of event firings with no discernable user action.
This project is a little different than most, because the user is actually the CEC team as well as the agency team, making it an example of service design. Service design improves the experiences of both the user and employee by designing, aligning, and optimizing an organization’s operations to better support customer journeys.1
It was extremely difficult to determine specific events, because each form submission was labeled the same. The main differentiator between these events was the page name (label) but all events were fired by clicks on the page; which essentially meant all of these event firings may not actually be form submissions - users moving through the booking funnel and instead just clicking around on each page.
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In short, internal and external teams were not getting a good idea of how users were moving through the booking funnel because of inaccurate tracking setup. Chuck E Cheese needed tracking that would show how users were moving through the booking funnel and the actions that they were taking to help improve the process. The problem was not limited to the booking funnel - CEC also had a total of over 300 tags with duplicated, tags without triggers, and so many other issues.
It was important to understand how each team used the CEC GTM container (where all the tracking was inputted) to reach a shared understanding of why a matching naming convention was important and necessary.
The end result? Cleaner data and better insights into how users were interacting with the site and better informed testing ideas and recommendations.
It was extremely difficult to determine specific events, because each form submission was labeled the same. The main differentiator between these events was the page name (label) but all events were fired by clicks on the page; which essentially meant all of these event firings may not actually be form submissions - users moving through the booking funnel and instead just clicking around on each page.
In short, internal and external teams were not getting a good idea of how users were moving through the booking funnel because of inaccurate tracking setup. Chuck E Cheese needed tracking that would show how users were moving through the booking funnel and the actions that they were taking to help improve the process. The problem was not limited to the booking funnel - CEC also had a total of over 300 tags with duplicated, tags without triggers, and so many other issues.
It was important to understand how each team used the CEC GTM container (where all the tracking was inputted) to reach a shared understanding of why a matching naming convention was important and necessary.
- I created a clearer naming convention and created documentation for it to help as the internal and other agency teams created new tracking through GTM.
- I designed a new tagging flow for the booking funnel to help clear up and define actions that users were taking in the booking process. This helped the UX team, strategy team, and client find bottlenecks and issues on CEC’s website.
- I made the intial push to clean up CEC's GTM container, which meant auditing all 300+ tags, and creating a spreadsheet of current tag/trigger/variable names with proposed new names and fixes for each tag and noting which ones were duplicates or no longer valid.
- I manually updated each tag/trigger/variable in CEC's GTM container, bringing down their tag count from 300+ to a mere 170ish tags. I checked each tag to ensure it was firing correctly.
The end result? Cleaner data and better insights into how users were interacting with the site and better informed testing ideas and recommendations.