# Synctag — broken tracking, documented and fixed

> Synctag is the practice of Baris Asa, an independent tracking and analytics consultant in London. He audits the tracking of online brands, documents what's broken against a named fault-code system, and fixes it: GTM, GA4, server-side tracking, consent, and reporting. The site is organised as a casebook — recurring faults are catalogued by code (F-/R-/U-), and worked cases cite those codes.

## Core

- [Homepage](https://synctag.co.uk/): who Baris is, three worked case files (attribution loss, duplicate conversions, consent gaps), and how a case gets worked — examine, document, fix, close.
- [The fault index](https://synctag.co.uk/faults): the canonical register of recurring tracking faults. Each code (e.g. F-101 duplicate conversion firing, F-201 Consent Mode absent, F-401 server-side signals absent) lists the symptom, the cause, where it's caught, and the fix.
- [How I work](https://synctag.co.uk/services): scope of practice and the shape of an engagement — a scoping call, a tracking audit, then a fixed quote. No public price list; the audit is a standalone deliverable.
- [Intake check](https://synctag.co.uk/check): a five-question self-assessment that runs in the browser and returns the likely fault codes for your setup.

## Reference

- [The manual](https://synctag.co.uk/manual): explainer chapters grouped by fault band (collection & duplication, signal lost in transit, ecommerce & reconciliation, server-side & match quality, configuration & data integrity, reporting, unmeasured).

## Notes

- [The reading room](https://synctag.co.uk/notes): the casebook archive — field notes, symptom files, verdicts and reconciliations on broken tracking, each tied to a fault code. Every record is published for both readers: a human view and a machine-readable structured view.
  - [Consent Mode v2 didn't lose your conversions. Your tags did](https://synctag.co.uk/notes/consent-mode-v2-conversion-drop): why GA4 and Ads conversions fall 20-40% after a Consent Mode v2 rollout (ad_user_data and ad_personalization default to denied) and the tag-gating fix that recovers most of it.
  - [GA4 revenue runs ahead of Shopify, every week](https://synctag.co.uk/notes/ga4-revenue-ahead-of-shopify): the purchase event firing more than once per order; GA4 does not deduplicate by transaction_id, so fire once and let the platforms dedupe on event_id / order id.
  - [Direct traffic jumped after the redesign](https://synctag.co.uk/notes/direct-traffic-jumped-after-redesign): (direct) is a lost referrer on a redirect; the fix is the _gl cross-domain linker plus the unwanted-referrals list.
  - [GA4 hides your smallest segments behind (other)](https://synctag.co.uk/notes/ga4-hides-data-behind-other): data thresholding (not sampling) tied to Google Signals; switch the reporting identity to Device-based or query the BigQuery export.
  - [You don't need server-side tracking](https://synctag.co.uk/notes/you-dont-need-server-side-tracking): a verdict, ruled "it depends" — server-side is a recovery tool for eroding signal (ITP, ad blockers), not a moral upgrade.
  - [Reconciliation No. 01](https://synctag.co.uk/notes/reconciliation-no-01): a periodic log of upstream platform changes (GA4 Data API quota, Meta CAPI dedup window, Safari cookie cap, Google Ads Enhanced Conversions diagnostics) and their impact.

## Talks

- [Where did my paid clicks go? (HeroConf 2026)](https://synctag.co.uk/heroconf): five post-click leaks — speed, redirects, bots, spam, tracking — you can plug with Cloudflare, without turning a paid funnel into a software project.

## About

- Baris Asa — tracking and analytics specialist, London. 8+ years hands-on at the junction of marketing and engineering. Conference speaker (HeroConf, PPC Live, Search N Stuff). Works solo, hands on keyboard, name on every fix.
- Contact: hello@synctag.co.uk

## Legal

- [Privacy policy](https://synctag.co.uk/privacy)
- [Terms of service](https://synctag.co.uk/terms)