Measurement QA

Privacy-friendly analytics plan

Launch measurement notes for Getaway Brief. Local builds remain tracking-free; Plausible or Umami should be configured only after the site owner approves the public URL, privacy language, and analytics provider.

Getaway Brief Analytics Plan

Purpose: make Getaway Brief measurable from launch so Getaway Brief research assistant can learn what topics, page templates, and affiliate placements work.

Core questions

Which article formulas get impressions?
Which pages get clicks from search?
Which guide categories keep readers engaged?
Which affiliate CTA type gets outbound clicks?
Which pages should be expanded, refreshed, or killed?

Recommended analytics stack

Selected at launch

Self-hosted Umami

Selected because the site owner wants self-hosting and prefers avoiding Google/big-data analytics.
Measures pageviews, referrers, top pages, and tagged CTA/navigation events.
Recommended subdomain: analytics.tripsignal.io.
Prepared deploy files live in analytics/umami/.
Avoid GA4/Google Analytics unless the site owner explicitly changes direction.

Search indexing/SEO feedback without Google-first dependency

Use Bing Webmaster Tools and any non-Google search-index tools available after domain launch.
Consider Google Search Console only as an optional later SEO utility, not the default analytics stack, because the site owner prefers avoiding big-data Google tooling where possible.

Optional later

Affiliate network reporting

Travelpayouts / Booking / GetYourGuide click and conversion data.
Use subIDs/UTM-style labels per page and CTA type where supported.

Rank tracking / keyword tool

Only after site is live and has enough content to justify cost.

Events to track

Minimum events:

guide_card_click
affiliate_cta_click
search_widget_click
cluster_click
outbound_link_click

Event properties where supported:

article_slug
traveler_type
cta_label
affiliate_intent
destination_name
page_path

Page-level fields to preserve in article data

slug
primary_keyword
traveler_type
research_status
affiliate_intents
demand_evidence
last_updated

These fields let us compare traffic against topic type and readiness.

Weekly review loop

Once public and indexed, run weekly:

Pull Search Console top queries/pages.
Pull analytics top pages and outbound clicks.
Classify pages:

gaining impressions but low CTR → improve title/meta
clicks but no affiliate clicks → improve CTA placement or intent match
affiliate clicks but no conversions → test partner/offers
no impressions after 60–90 days → refresh, merge, or noindex

Update the content queue from real data.

Launch implementation notes

The static generator supports analytics configuration through environment variables. The approved live/default configuration is self-hosted Umami at https://analytics.m86.dev/script.js with website ID [REDACTED].

Default preference: use self-hosted umami; avoid GA4/Google Analytics unless the site owner explicitly requests it.

Current env vars for public build/deploy:

GETAWAYBRIEF_ANALYTICS_PROVIDER=umami
GETAWAYBRIEF_UMAMI_WEBSITE_ID=[REDACTED]
GETAWAYBRIEF_UMAMI_SCRIPT_URL=https://analytics.m86.dev/script.js

Self-hosting files:

analytics/umami/docker-compose.yml
analytics/umami/.env.example
analytics/umami/README.md
.env.analytics.umami.example

Privacy policy should continue to match the chosen analytics provider and whether cookies are used. Do not switch to GA4/Google Analytics without explicit site-owner approval.