Analytics tracking is installed

ab-002177 · pre-launch.monitoring.analytics

Severity: mediumactive

Why it matters

Launching without analytics means the traffic from your Product Hunt post, Reddit thread, or paid campaign arrives invisible — you cannot tell whether anyone clicked, which pages they landed on, or where they dropped out of signup. Conversion funnels, referrer attribution, and bounce-rate signals are unrecoverable retroactively; if you add analytics a week later, that launch week stays a black hole. Product decisions default to vibes instead of data.

Severity rationale

Medium because the blind spot is durable — missed traffic data cannot be backfilled once the event passes.

Remediation

On Vercel, install @vercel/analytics and render <Analytics /> in app/layout.tsx — zero config, no cookie banner required. For a privacy-friendly alternative use Plausible via next-plausible, or PostHog for session recording and funnel analysis. Confirm the production environment variable holds a real tracking ID, not YOUR_GA_ID or phc_placeholder.

// app/layout.tsx
import { Analytics } from '@vercel/analytics/react'
export default function RootLayout({ children }) { return <html><body>{children}<Analytics /></body></html> }

Detection

ID: analytics
Severity: medium
What to look for: Count all analytics integrations. Enumerate which analytics services are configured (Google Analytics, Plausible, PostHog, Vercel Analytics). Check for analytics library dependencies: @vercel/analytics, @analytics/*, next-plausible, react-ga4, @google-analytics/*, mixpanel-browser, posthog-js, segment, @amplitude/analytics-browser. Check for analytics initialization in layout components or _app.tsx. Check for NEXT_PUBLIC_GA_ID, NEXT_PUBLIC_PLAUSIBLE_DOMAIN, or similar analytics environment variables in .env.example. Check for <Script> components loading analytics providers.
Pass criteria: An analytics library is initialized and configured in the project. The tracking ID or configuration appears to be a production value (not a placeholder like YOUR_GA_ID). At least 1 analytics service must be configured and active in production.
Fail criteria: No analytics library found — no visibility into whether users are arriving, what they're doing, or where they're dropping off.
Skip (N/A) when: Skip for internal tools, APIs, or CLI tools with no user-facing pages where analytics would be irrelevant. Skip for projects where the developer has intentionally decided not to use analytics and has documented this decision (look for a comment or note stating this).
Cross-reference: For error monitoring, see error-monitoring.
Detail on fail: "No analytics library detected — you will have no visibility into user traffic, behavior, or conversion after launch"
Remediation: Without analytics, you're making product decisions blind. You won't know if your launch drove any traffic, where users are dropping off, or which features they actually use:
```
// app/layout.tsx — analytics integration
import { Analytics } from '@vercel/analytics/react'
<Analytics />
```
1. Vercel Analytics is the simplest for Vercel-hosted projects: npm install @vercel/analytics and add <Analytics /> to your root layout. Requires the Vercel Analytics addon.
2. Plausible is a privacy-friendly option that doesn't require cookie consent: npm install next-plausible.
3. PostHog offers both analytics and product analytics (session recording, funnel analysis) with a generous free tier.
4. Google Analytics 4 is free and comprehensive — use @next/third-parties for Next.js integration.
5. Ensure the analytics tracking ID in your production environment variables is a real production ID, not a dev placeholder.

Taxons

observability

History

2026-04-18·v1.0.0·Initial import from pre-launch·automated

Why it matters

Remediation

// app/layout.tsx
import { Analytics } from '@vercel/analytics/react'
export default function RootLayout({ children }) { return <html><body>{children}<Analytics /></body></html> }

Detection

ID: analytics
Severity: medium
What to look for: Count all analytics integrations. Enumerate which analytics services are configured (Google Analytics, Plausible, PostHog, Vercel Analytics). Check for analytics library dependencies: @vercel/analytics, @analytics/*, next-plausible, react-ga4, @google-analytics/*, mixpanel-browser, posthog-js, segment, @amplitude/analytics-browser. Check for analytics initialization in layout components or _app.tsx. Check for NEXT_PUBLIC_GA_ID, NEXT_PUBLIC_PLAUSIBLE_DOMAIN, or similar analytics environment variables in .env.example. Check for <Script> components loading analytics providers.
Pass criteria: An analytics library is initialized and configured in the project. The tracking ID or configuration appears to be a production value (not a placeholder like YOUR_GA_ID). At least 1 analytics service must be configured and active in production.
Fail criteria: No analytics library found — no visibility into whether users are arriving, what they're doing, or where they're dropping off.
Skip (N/A) when: Skip for internal tools, APIs, or CLI tools with no user-facing pages where analytics would be irrelevant. Skip for projects where the developer has intentionally decided not to use analytics and has documented this decision (look for a comment or note stating this).
Cross-reference: For error monitoring, see error-monitoring.
Detail on fail: "No analytics library detected — you will have no visibility into user traffic, behavior, or conversion after launch"
Remediation: Without analytics, you're making product decisions blind. You won't know if your launch drove any traffic, where users are dropping off, or which features they actually use:
```
// app/layout.tsx — analytics integration
import { Analytics } from '@vercel/analytics/react'
<Analytics />
```
1. Vercel Analytics is the simplest for Vercel-hosted projects: npm install @vercel/analytics and add <Analytics /> to your root layout. Requires the Vercel Analytics addon.
2. Plausible is a privacy-friendly option that doesn't require cookie consent: npm install next-plausible.
3. PostHog offers both analytics and product analytics (session recording, funnel analysis) with a generous free tier.
4. Google Analytics 4 is free and comprehensive — use @next/third-parties for Next.js integration.
5. Ensure the analytics tracking ID in your production environment variables is a real production ID, not a dev placeholder.