You will produce a measurement plan that lists goals, KPIs, data sources and owners before any tool setup.
Most GA4 setups that go wrong were never planned. Someone installs the tag because the web designer said to, marks a few events as important because the setup screen suggested it, and a year later nobody can say what the numbers are supposed to answer. When the person who set it up leaves, the knowledge leaves too.
A measurement plan prevents that. It is one page that says what the business is trying to achieve, which number tracks each goal, what counts as success on the website, where every number comes from and who looks at it. You write it before you open any tool, and every later module in this course builds from it: the UTM rules in module 2, the key events in module 3, the dashboard in module 6.
This exercise walks through Priya's plan for her maths centre in Tampines, then you write your own.
Take the goals from lesson 1.2, From business goal to marketing KPI. Two is a good number for a small business. More than four and the plan stops fitting on a page.
Priya wrote:
Goal 1: enrol 24 new students between January and March (an example target). Main KPI: enquiries per week from all channels.
Goal 2: fill the new Saturday morning class for Primary 6 students by the end of February. Main KPI: trial class bookings for the Saturday slot.
Each KPI is the number closest to the goal that marketing can move and that she can count every week. Under each one she noted two supporting numbers that explain movement: website visits and the visit-to-enquiry rate for goal 1, and enquiries that mention Saturday and trial-to-enrolment rate for goal 2.
Now look at your website and ask what a visitor does when the marketing has worked. These are the actions you will later set up as key events in GA4. They should be real steps towards the goal, not signs of interest like reading a page or watching a video.
For Priya, three actions count:
Sending the enquiry form on the contact page. Clicking the WhatsApp button on any page, which opens a chat with the centre. Booking a trial class through the online booking page.
She left out downloading the timetable PDF. It shows interest, but plenty of current parents download it every term, so a rise would not mean new families were coming.
For a shop, the obvious action is a purchase. For a service business it is usually a form sent, a booking made or a call button tapped. If your site has none of these, that is worth knowing before you build anything else, because GA4 will have nothing useful to count.
Next to every number, write where it will come from. Be specific. "GA4" is fine for website visits. "Booking spreadsheet, column F" is better than "our records" for trial classes.
Priya's sources were GA4 for visits, form sends and WhatsApp clicks, the booking page's own dashboard for trial bookings, and her enrolment spreadsheet for new students. Enrolments are the goal, so the spreadsheet is the source of truth for whether the quarter worked, whatever GA4 says.
Then write the owner: the person who checks that number and notices when it looks wrong. Priya owns the main KPIs. Her part-time admin, who answers WhatsApp messages, owns the count of WhatsApp enquiries, because only a person reading the chats can tell an enquiry from a current parent asking about homework.
An owner is not the person who fixes everything. It is the person who would spot a problem first.
Every plan has gaps, and writing them down stops people pretending the numbers are complete. Priya listed two.
Word of mouth was the first. Many parents hear about a centre from another parent and then type its name into Google. GA4 will record that as an organic search or a direct visit, and never as a recommendation. Her stand-in measure: a "how did you hear about us" question on the trial booking form, which module 5 returns to.
WhatsApp chats were the second. A click on the WhatsApp button shows intent, but GA4 cannot see whether a chat followed. Her stand-in: the admin tallies new enquiry chats each week in the spreadsheet.
Writing "we use X instead" is the useful part. A gap with a stand-in is a known limitation, while a gap nobody wrote down is a surprise in six months.
Priya's finished plan is a single table with these columns: goal, main KPI, supporting numbers, success actions on the website, data source, owner, and known gaps with their stand-ins. Two rows, one per goal. It fits on one sheet of paper with room to spare.
If yours runs to two pages, cut. The usual culprits are extra goals that are really tactics ("post more on TikTok"), supporting numbers nobody would act on, and success actions that measure interest rather than progress. Check each line against the test from lesson 1.1: if this number moved, would someone do something different?
Keep the plan where the team can find it. You will open it again in module 3 when you set up key events, and again in module 6 when you choose what goes on the dashboard. With Priya's version as a model, you are ready to write the plan for your own business.
Fill in a one-page measurement plan with at least two goals, one KPI each, the website actions that count, and the data source for every number.
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