# Analytics tracking is installed - **Pattern:** `ab-002177` (`pre-launch.monitoring.analytics`) - **Severity:** medium - **Lifecycle:** active - **Last modified:** 2026-04-18 - **Canonical URL:** https://auditbuffet.com/patterns/ab-002177 - **License:** CC-BY-4.0 — attribute to AuditBuffet Pattern Catalog (https://auditbuffet.com/patterns/ab-002177) ## 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 `` 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`. ```tsx // app/layout.tsx import { Analytics } from '@vercel/analytics/react' export default function RootLayout({ children }) { return {children} } ``` ## 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 `