Google Tag Manager Overview, Introduction to Google Tag Manager
In this post, we are focusing on some key questions regarding Google Tag Manager, such as:
- What is Google tag manager?
- How is it connected to Google Analytics?
- How does GTM Work?
- Advantages of Google Tag Manager
- Downsides of Google Tag Manager
(I’ll be using a personal project here to show the example images)
What is Google tag manager?
Google Tag Manager is the tool that helps you deploy snippets of code on your website without having to modify the code, definitely something worth checking out if you’re not a developer but still want to integrate your website with Google Analytics. Now, how is Google Tag Manager related to Google Analytics?
How is it connected to Google Analytics?
You don’t have to code, and that’s the best part about Google Tag Manager. No developer hassle. Seems easy but it has got its technicalities too. We’ll get to it in just a moment.
Though you won’t have to go to the developer for it, some technical knowledge is always required to work things out in Google Tag Manager, to set tags, triggers, and variables. Knowledge about Google Analytics is a mandatory one since all the results of google tag manager will show up in google analytics as a report. It might take you a bit of time to get used to GTM, but when you do it’s pretty awesome, and you can track things beyond your imagination.
How does GTM Work?
There are three main parts of Google Tag Manager:
- Tags (Javascript tracking codes)
- Triggers (Tells GTM to fire a tag when a specific event happens)
- Variables (Information GTM needs to fire a trigger)
Tag Example: Snippets of javascript tracking codes, tells Google Tag Manager what to do.
Trigger Example: Tells GTM to fire a tag when a specific event happens. In a nutshell, it tells Google Tag Manages when to do what it’s trying to do.
Variable Example: Information GTM needs to fire a trigger, Such as the GA Tracking Id number variable.
Advantages of Google Tag Manager
The best part of Google tag manager is you can customize the data you send to Google Analytics. You can set up events like Form Submission, Add to cart, Scroll depth, Outbound clicks, and everything with Google Tag Manager.
Since you are not using the analytics JS code in the header of your website, it’s very likely that using Google Tag Manager will help load your website faster.
You can play around with it, experiment, and try new things and most of them will give you insights about your site you never even have thought of collecting before!
The debug mode in Google tag manager lets you test the tags you set up immediately and you can make sure if everything is going picture perfect or not.
Downsides of Google Tag Manager
The first downside has to be the fact that you need to have some kind of technical knowledge to work with Google tag manager for the long run, at least basic technical knowledge will do.
Secondly, You’ll have to spend time get a hold of it, and sometimes it can get really time-consuming since you’re going to have to experiment and test all kinds of events and tags you can use inside this tool.
This is just a basic idea of what can be done with Google Tag Manager, the possibilities are endless and to explore that you need to get your hands on it and try it out yourself! Good luck ❤
