What is Google Tag Manager?
Google Tag Manager or GTM is a free tracking platform designed to allow easy tracking and monitoring of websites. GTM was designed to be simple to use, with no need to edit code, it makes tracking data much easier for most people. GTM can be used alongside Google Analytics however, it can also replace this manually-coded tag, along with other manually-coded tags such as Google Ads or 3rd party tags.
What are tags?
Tags themselves are simply small segments of code (or code fragments) that are found on your website or mobile app. Once the fragment of code has been added to your site or app, you can deploy analytics and measure tag configurations from the Tag Manager website. Here you will be able to set up tags, establish triggers, and create variables. Triggers are the cause behind your tag firing when certain events occur. Variables are used to simplify and automate your tag configurations.
The collection of tags, triggers, and variables on a given website or mobile app is called a container.
Google Tag Manager vs Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a great tool to understand how your website is interacted with and who is interacting with it. But what happens if you want to get more specific? What happens if you want to see how many people complete a form or click a certain link? Sure you could have your already stacked developer insert the “hard code” from GA for this, but what if there are 100 forms or 1000 links? That’s where GTM comes in. GTM allows you to easily add tags and triggers on all forms and links with no complicated code. Now, does this mean you no longer need Google Analytics? Not at all. It is highly recommended that you use both and link up your GA account with your GTM account.
How to use Google Tag Manager
GTM has endless tracking potential, but here we’re going to list the most common uses for Google Tag Manager.
Track PDF downloads
Most businesses offer downloadable PDF files but they’re much more difficult to track and monitor than standard web pages. Google Tag Manager lets you create triggers each time somebody downloads a PDF file from your website or clicks a link through to a PDF uploaded page.
Track link clicks
Understanding the user journey is crucial for all businesses. Google Tag Manager lets you track individual links on a page and the number of users clicking them. This allows you to understand a lot about your current user’s experiences, such as how visitors interact with your menu, footer and contextual links. From this, you can develop a better user experience and improve goal completion.
Track form submissions
Google Tag Manager makes it easier than ever to track a large number of forms and easily split them up for different purposes. If you have a form with multiple contact reasons, you can easily tell the most popular reasons that your visitors reach out through the use of triggers and variables.
What are the benefits of Google Tag Manager?
Now that you understand the analytical tool that is Google Tag Manager, here are the benefits of implementing it on your website.
Requires no coding knowledge
As we discussed earlier, Google Tag Manager allows for advanced tracking with little to no coding experience required. It’s a user-friendly analytical tool which has an easy-to-use interface making it simple to create and edit GTM tracking codes without the need for a developer.
GTM doesn’t hinder page speed
Google designed their tag manager tool to fire tags asynchronously, meaning it doesn’t wait for each tag to load before executing the deployment of a singular tag. This removes the ability for tags to slow down or hinder the page speed and overall performance of your site.
Fast implementation and easy customisation
The biggest benefit when it comes to Google Tag Manager is its simplicity. Designed for everybody to be able to use, it makes it super easy for marketers to rapidly implement multiple tags across a website without requiring a developer. This also allows them to work on and develop strategies and ideas through customisations of tags and their performance on a rapid scale. This can help your business grow and discover more about your audience’s goals in a shorter time frame.
