How to write a tracking plan for GA4 and the Meta Pixel, with a CSV template

Updated September 2026 · 6 min read

A tracking plan, or measurement plan, lists the events a site should send and what each one must contain. Without one, "is the tracking right?" has no answer: you can only compare what fires with what someone remembers. A plan kept as a CSV file can be read by anyone, versioned like code and checked against a real journey.

What the plan should say about each event

• Platform and exact name. GA4 event names are case-sensitive (purchase is not Purchase), and Meta’s standard events have their own names (Purchase, AddToCart…).
• Required parameters. For example, Google’s ecommerce reference lists transaction_id, value, currency (required when you send value) and items for a GA4 purchase; Meta requires value and currency for Purchase.
• Value rules. For example: a three-letter ISO 4217 currency code, an item_id or item_name for each GA4 item, and value > 0 if your plan excludes zero-value orders.
• How many times it may fire. Once per order, at least once, any number of times, or never (an event that must not reach the live site, such as a test event).
• Consent checks. Tracklint’s consent template checks analytics_storage for GA4 and ad_storage for Meta Pixel events. The Meta check uses Google’s consent signal as a reference: your site must explicitly connect that state to whether the pixel may fire. In advanced Consent Mode, GA4 can send cookieless pings while analytics_storage is denied.
• Where it fires, and a note for the people who implement and test it.

The CSV format

We keep plans as plain CSV files, one row per event. These rows come from the e-commerce template in our tracking-plan-templates repository (CC0, in English and Spanish):

platform,event,required,rules,count,consent,note
ga4,purchase,transaction_id;currency;value;items,currency is iso4217; value > 0; each item has item_id|item_name,once,,Order confirmation
meta,Purchase,value;currency,currency is iso4217; value > 0,once,,Order confirmation. Add event_id if you also use the Conversions API

• platform: ga4 or meta. event: the name exactly as sent.
• required: parameters that must be present, separated by ;.
• rules: value rules separated by ;, such as currency is iso4217, value > 0, currency in EUR|USD|MXN or each item has item_id|item_name.
• count: once, at_least_once (the default when empty), any or never.
• consent: ad_storage, analytics_storage, ad_user_data or ad_personalization, separated by ;.
• note: free text. Two optional columns narrow a row down: id (the measurement ID or pixel ID the event must go to) and url (text the page URL must contain, or a pattern with *).

Lines that start with # are comments; # name: My plan names the plan and # consent_mode: advanced (or basic) records which Consent Mode the site uses. The Spanish files use ; as the separator, which Excel recognizes directly when its regional settings use a semicolon as the list separator, with the required and rules fields in quotes.

Tips

• Start from the platforms’ references (Google’s recommended events, Meta’s standard events) and add custom events only when someone will use them in a report.
• If the site sends to more than one GA4 property or pixel, fill in the id column so each row checks the right destination.
• Keep the plan next to the site’s code or in a shared folder, review it with the developer before implementing it, and update it whenever the site changes.
• Test it: record a journey and compare each row with what the browser sent. The GA4 tracking QA checklist covers what else to look at.