Google Tag Manager: the hub for your tracking and testing snippets

If you include external services in your web project to measure its success or the number of ad­ver­tis­ing campaigns launched, you usually need to juggle a large number of snippet codes. In addition to a certain know-how in pro­gram­ming, this requires a high degree of oversight. Without the ability to directly access the code base, you would always need to contact the re­spon­si­ble pro­gram­mer to implement new analytics and tracking services. In an effort to counter this, Google published the Google Tag Manager a few years ago, which sim­pli­fies the in­te­gra­tion of different codes con­sid­er­ably.

In October 2012, Google released the Google Tag Manager (GTM) as its in-house man­age­ment system for the in­te­gra­tion and man­age­ment of JavaScript - and HTML - tags. While the first version was primarily designed for Google’s Analytics, AdWords, and Dou­bleClick solutions, version 2 (2014) of the Tag Manager has been sup­port­ing an ever-in­creas­ing number of third-party tags, es­pe­cial­ly with the release of the official API. Google Tag Manager is not limited to just im­ple­ment­ing analysis and con­ver­sion tool: re­mar­ket­ing and affiliate tags as well as snippets from testing tools, such as AB Tasty or Mouseflow (heat mapping tool), can be im­ple­ment­ed into a web project (website or mobile app) using the software.

When using Google Tag Manager, you cannot com­plete­ly avoid in­ter­act­ing with the source code. However, unlike snippet in­te­gra­tion without the Tag Manager, you only need to interact with the HTML framework once. To start, insert the container snippet in the form of two small code sections in the header and body area. All the other im­ple­men­ta­tions are done in the terminal via the Google Tag Manager interface. The container snippet acts as a central place from which all tags that you configure through the browser are collected. Later changes to a snippet can be made directly in the Tag Manager. Should you no longer need a tag, simply delete it from the container.

To ensure the container snippet detects the desired user in­ter­ac­tions and in­for­ma­tion, and that it is then forwarded to the re­spec­tive service, you must ensure that you create the correct tags and triggers in Google Tag Manager. Variables can be used to specify both these basic elements of the Google tools. For all three com­po­nents, there are precast templates – you can also adjust these to your needs in the settings. The exact functions of the tag, trigger, and variable are shown in the following short briefs.

Tags are the central con­trol­ling units of the Google Tag Manager. They determine what in­for­ma­tion is sent to which services and are in code form. In principle, tags are nothing more than the snippets you would include in the HTML code. In addition to the standard tags, there are special JavaScript tags that do not serve to pass in­for­ma­tion but trigger ad­di­tion­al tags. However, the Google Tag Manager generally loads all tags contained within a container in­de­pen­dent­ly of each other and in parallel to the other elements of the web project. Through an in­tel­li­gent caching mechanism, the number of requests that the webserver must deal with is optimized.

Triggers let you define the re­quire­ments under which a specific tag is used in Google Tag Manager. Specif­i­cal­ly, it is about which user actions or events lead to a code being performed – and so "trig­ger­ing" it. These can be, for example, simple page views, loaded windows or the ap­pear­ance of error messages, but also active clicks of visitors to a par­tic­u­lar button. You can, of course, also fill out a form, sign up to a newslet­ter, or watch a video as a tag trigger. It is possible to use the same trigger for multiple tags.

If you want to change the settings for defined tags and triggers, you can use the Tag Manager variables. For tags, variables provide the ability to capture dynamic values. If, for example, in­for­ma­tion such as the handover of the trans­ac­tion or the handover of the purchased products is to be tracked in an online shop, variables can be regulated. Triggers behave in a similar way - variables are used to specify the triggers: while you only use a trigger to define that a tag should be executed when a page im­pres­sion occurs, you can use a variable to specify which page(s) or URL(s) should be involved.

The Google Tag Manager operates on a diverse base of areas for every event, working with in­te­grat­ed tracking and analysis tools. We have collected the ad­van­tages of this Google software:

• In­ter­me­di­ate storage of tags minimizes server re­quire­ments and reduces the loading time of web projects.
• General stream­lin­ing of source codes
• Simple, con­ve­nient in­te­gra­tion and man­age­ment of tags using a dedicated web interface after one direct in­ter­ac­tion with the source code
• Permanent blocking of undesired snippets and snippet types enhances the security standards of your website/app.
• Diverse ready-to-use templates for tags, variables, and triggers available
• Automatic ver­i­fi­ca­tion of tags in the preview and debugging modes
• Recording of all tag ac­tiv­i­ties, such as changes to the Google Tag Manager account settings

How can Google’s Tag Manager be used for your own website or app? Since the Tag Manager is web-based, no in­stal­la­tion is necessary and you can access the interface via any standard browser. Also, there are no costs involved to use the tool, so in principle you can start im­me­di­ate­ly. Indeed, the only re­quire­ment is a valid Google account. If you already use services such as AdWords, Gmail, or Google Drive, you already have an account - otherwise you will need to create an account to access Google Tag Manager.

Save the new Google Analytics tag on the same-named button and in the pop-up window “Save tag.” You can then takeover the suggested tag names.

Press “Save” and choose an ap­pro­pri­ate name for the new trigger.

Click on “Publish” to complete the live version of your first tag container.