Google Tag Manager – The All in One Tag

Capturing activity on the website or even the app is now essential to broadcast advertising and products to the right visitors and potential customers. For this “tracking” a so-called tag is implemented in the website, which collects the activities of your visitors in the form of data. But for any web tool, like Google Analytics and Google AdWords, you would need a tracking code on your website. This is where the key player comes in, the Google Tag Manager.

What is the Tag Manager?
Like a folder of documents, Tag Manager works with your tracking code snippets, called tags. With Google Tag Manager, you can manage all of your tags on your page for a single day, without the help of your webmaster.

The Tag Manager code snippet may also capture more complex data that is not provided by Google, such as Google Analytics. a page request, be specified. Using the so-called “data layer” and your webmaster for the implementation, one can define data, e.g. Capture transaction values. The data layer is an array that contains the important “keys” and “values”. As an example, here’s a simple Google Analytics Data Layer:

<script>
window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
dataLayer.push({
  ‚transactionId‘: ‚1234‘,
  ‚transactionAffiliation‘: ‚Acme‘,
  ‚transactionTotal‘: 28.58,
  ‚transactionTax‘: 1.96,
  ‚transactionShipping‘: 3.90,
  ‚transactionProducts‘: [{
    ’sku‘: ‚DD44′,
    ’name‘: ‚Acme‘,
    ‚category‘: ‚Schuhe‘,
    ‚price‘: 28.58,
    ‚quantity‘: 1
  }]
});
</script>

With „key : value“ you can easily define variables via the tag manager, in this case a data layer variable (Data Layer). Specifically, the keys were used for Google Analytics e-commerce, which can also be used for other e-commerce tracking. In addition to data layer variables, there are still custom JavaScript variables or DOM element variables. However, to create variables, you should consult with your webmaster, who will provide you with the necessary scripts and implement them directly in Tag Manager. The Data Layer requires your webmaster to implement the only code next to the Google Tag Manager snippet on your web page if you choose a data layer variable for transactions and.

However, any collection of data in the Tag Manager requires a trigger because the Tag Manager snippet can contain multiple tags. This trigger tells the tag manager when to activate a particular tag and collect data, e.g. when a specific URL is called.

What are the key benefits of Tag Manager?
These are obvious – your full page tracking at a glance without complicated code, less code on your page means shorter page load times, and a debugging console to help you find your bugs easier. If you ever discover a major flaw, you can just go back in time and revisit your old versions.

What are the main disadvantages of Tag Manager?
The Tag Manager has as many disadvantages as a well sorted document folder compared to individual unsorted documents – none. The Tag Manager reduces the disadvantages of the traditional implementation of your tracking codes.

Conclusion
Tag Manager is a safe transition if you use multiple tags for data tracking. It gives you an overview of your tags and all data received in Google Analytics, Google AdWords and others. through a single tracking code on your website and manage it through the Tag Manager.
Moving to Tag Manager is relatively fast and, in the long term, is a worthwhile transition, helping you keep track of your tags and quickly add, change or remove them.

More information at de.onpage.org