What this is: a design preview of the reporting you'll receive ·
Built from: the measurement plan, event taxonomy, GTM implementation plan and the
Thriving Together KPI mapping · Prepared by: Ellis Agency ·
Date: July 2026
How to read this document. These are layout previews — the real thing is
built in Looker Studio on live GA4 data. Every panel is labelled so you always know what you're
looking at:
Actual Real figures from Guilford's GA4 property
359308554, pulled 2026-06-22 for the trailing 90 days. These are the pre-launch
benchmarks we will measure lift against.
Sample Illustrative placeholders showing shape and
layout only. These panels report on events that do not exist yet — they are
created by this project. Giving in particular has zero tracking today, so its first
90 days post-launch become its own baseline. Do not read these as forecasts.
1. How the reporting gets made
One instrumentation layer feeds everything. We tag the shared components, not
individual pages, so a CTA emits the same event with the same parameters no matter which template
renders it — including the non-Drupal systems, via the portable T6 frame.
1 · Site
Component kit
CTAs, cards, filters, forms push a uniform dataLayer object.
→
2 · Tagging
GTM container
One container maps dataLayer → GA4. One mapping, all templates.
The one page built for trustees. It reports in the Board's language, using the Board's own
Measuring Progress targets, and shows the site behaviour that moves each one. Most
Board targets are multi-year institutional endpoints — the site reports the leading
indicators that ladder toward them, which is why each card names both.
Measured on conversions, not just traffic — region/metro applied to admit-intent actions.
Audience: Out-of-state prospects · geo dimension on key events
Student success & retention
FY2030 · ≥80% fall-to-fall
— task-success proxy
The site can't retain students by itself; it removes friction. Leading indicators only —
the retention % itself comes from the SIS and is shown for context, not attributed to the site.
The giving funnel and the prominent new Give CTA, with gift value attributed back to its on-site origin.
donation_start → donation_complete{value}
Cross-cut — media visibility & reputation
The plan's eighth outcome
Organic + branded search, direct traffic,
and news/referral engagement — the same signals the parallel branding project moves. Sits on this page so
trustees see reputation next to enrollment and giving.
Why the KPI numbers are blank above. Three of these four cards report on
key events that don't exist yet — they're created by this project. Rather than print invented figures on a
board-facing page, the preview shows the structure. The first populated version ships with the
post-launch data.
3. Screen 2 — Enrollment
The primary funnel. Today this is not computable: three overlapping vendor events
(guilford_application_button, guilford_app_click_to_apply_site,
guilford_college_application) measure overlapping things, so a true start→submit rate can't be
derived. Standardising the taxonomy is what makes this screen possible.
↓ 47.2% continue · the number nobody can see today
Application submittedapply_submit
590
Supporting conversions
Sample
Request info
742
▲ 8.4% WoW
true form submits, not clicks
Visits scheduled
168
▲ 12.1% WoW
net-new conversion
Apply start → submit
47.2%
— first measurable
not computable pre-launch
Mobile share of applies
38.6%
▲ 3.2 pts
validates mobile-first build
4. Screen 3 — Giving (net-new)
Donors are the #2 audience and there is no giving tracking at all today —
the single biggest measurement gap in the baseline. Giving happens off-domain, so this screen depends on
cross-domain measurement and the T6 frame injecting the same tag on the giving platform.
Because nothing is tracked today, there is
no pre-launch benchmark to beat here. The first 90 days after launch establish the
giving baseline, and the Board view reports growth from that point forward.
5. Screen 4 — Audience reach Actual data
This screen is populated with Guilford's real numbers, because it reports on traffic that
already exists. It is also where the most important finding in the baseline lives.
Direct highlighted: the “people who already know Guilford” signal Actual
Organic Search62,216 · 51.8%
Direct37,507 · 31.2%
Display (Encoura)6,113 · 5.1%
Referral4,856 · 4.0%
Organic Social3,721 · 3.1%
Paid Other (Encoura)3,080 · 2.6%
Unassigned2,977 · 2.5%
Device
Mobile highlighted — the case for the mobile-first rebuild Actual
Desktop76,683 · 63.9%
Mobile42,393 · 35.3%
Tablet1,351 · 1.1%
The finding this screen exists to protect.
Direct is 31.2% and returning sessions are 31.2% — they overlap, so they don't simply add. But the
behaviour is unmistakable: between direct, branded organic and returning visitors, roughly half
or more of all traffic is people who already know Guilford — current students, faculty/staff and
applicants checking status. Top pages bear it out: /current-students,
/faculty-and-staff, /account/login, /admitted-students,
/apply/status. Do not narrow the site. Those audiences stay first-class in
both the IA and the reporting.
Delivered by Looker Studio scheduled delivery — no one has to log in or pull anything. This is the email
itself, not a link to a dashboard: the numbers that matter are in the message, with the dashboard
one click away for anyone who wants to dig.
From: Guilford Analytics (Looker Studio) ·
To: Guilford marketing team; Ellis Agency account lead · Mondays, 8:00 ET
Week of 20 July 2026
vs previous week · guilford.edu · GA4 359308554
The week in one line
Applications started rose 8.4% on the back of
program-page traffic; giving held flat; mobile share of applies crossed 38% for the first
time. Sample
Headline
Sessions
9,842
▲ 5.1%
Apply starts
1,249
▲ 8.4%
Request info
742
▲ 3.2%
Gifts completed
148
— 0.4%
Strategic-plan KPIs
Board KPI
This week
Trend
Enrollment yield & growth
1,249 starts
▲ 8.4%
Out-of-state share of inquiries
36.2%
▲ 1.1 pts
Student task success (proxy)
91.8%
— flat
Advancement — gifts online
$41,280
▲ 11.5%
Worth a look
Zero-result searches fell to 8.2% after the navigation change — the
consolidated menus appear to be doing their job. Worth confirming next week before we call it.
Giving flat for a third week. Give CTA clicks are
up 19% but completions aren't following — the drop-off is on the giving platform, not the site. Suggest
Advancement reviews the gift form.
Automated weekly delivery · Looker Studio · Ellis Agency for Guilford College.
A daily operational version goes to the Ellis team only. Sample content shown for layout.
Why the email carries commentary. An automated dashboard link gets opened
once. The weekly report leads with what changed and what it probably means, so it stays useful to people who
don't live in analytics — which is the whole point of "automated reports" in the kickoff brief.
8. What powers it — tagging & GTM
The dashboard is only as good as the taxonomy underneath it. These are the key events the
build creates, and what each one replaces.
Replaces click-proxies — moves from click to true submit
visit_scheduled
Visit/tour booked
New — no equivalent today
donation_start
Give flow begins (off-domain)
New — biggest gap
donation_complete
Gift confirmed, with value
New — biggest gap
Every event carries a shared parameter set, so any number on any screen can be sliced the same way:
template, page_type, audience_priority, cta_type,
position, device, form_type, program, and
value/gift_designation for giving. position is how we will answer
“did making Give prominent actually work?”
Continuity matters more than cleanliness. For ~30 days at cutover we fire
the legacy vendor events and the new ones in parallel, and keep a mapping table, so the pre-launch
baseline stitches cleanly to post-launch. Legacy events are never deleted from history — the cutover date is
annotated instead. Without this, the refresh would look like a traffic cliff.
9. Cadence & distribution
Report
Cadence
Audience
Shape
Weekly report
Mondays, 8:00 ET
Guilford marketing + Ellis account lead
The email above
Daily operational
Every morning
Ellis ops (internal)
Anomaly watch — catches tagging breaks fast
Thriving Together board view
Monthly / quarterly roll-up
Senior leaders & trustees
Screen 1, in the Board's “Measuring Progress” shape
Live dashboard
Always on
Anyone with the link
Embedded in the client portal deliverable
10. What we still need to build it
Honest dependencies — these gate the screens above, and most need someone at Guilford:
GTM container access + audit. We enhance the existing GA4 setup rather than rebuild it,
so we inventory the current container, events and data streams before changing anything.
The giving platform. Cross-domain measurement to the giving system is what makes the
entire Giving screen possible. We need to confirm the platform and get tag access.
The application portal. Same for apply_submit — the confirmation lives
off-domain, and today that hop shows up as self-referral traffic.
Referral exclusions & cross-domain config for the apply portal, giving, catalog and
events platforms, so journeys don't fragment into separate sessions.
Consent Mode v2, consistent with the site's privacy and accessibility posture. Any
consent-driven gaps get flagged loudly in the first post-launch report, so consent changes never make a
trend lie.