In Michael Fienen’s “Fienen’s Totally Topical, Terrific Tutorial to Tag Manager” (#AIM3), attendees took a fast-paced dive into the what’s and why’s of Google Tag Manager: what it is, what it can do, why you should use it.
Tag Manager is all about working smarter, not harder. Anyone who has done anything beyond basic Google Analytics tracking knows how easy it is to get bogged down in a sea of javascript and code snippets. Prior to the conference, Fienen surveyed potential attendees and found that only 22.6% of responders were using tag manager. As he said: “Why to the rest of you insist on making your lives harder?”
What is Tag Manager?
Fienen’s own definition:
“A tool that lets you do stuff on your site without having to write a ton of stupid code every time, because that’s stupid.”
Tag Manager is more than Google Analytics. Many folks get their feet wet with Analytics, but marketers and developers can do much more — all with one consistent piece of code in your website template. No more adding 3rd party snippets or custom javascript to your site.
In Practice
Anything that you track in Google Analytics, you can do in tag manager. Additionally, any custom HTML that you need to add to your site (examples include Crazy Egg, Salesforce, LinkedIn, SiteImprove, etc.) can be done through Tag Manager.
Other examples of powerful ways to use tag manager:
- Form Abandonment – know where people leave forms
- Scroll Depth – see how far down any page people scroll, site-wide
- Slideshow usage – know how many visitors view and click through slides
Go Learn More
This was a great introduction to what is possible with Tag Manager. To learn more, Fienen suggested the following resources:
Analytics Academy
https://analyticsacademy.withgoogle.com/course/5
LunaMetrics
http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/category/google-tag-manager/
Simo Ahava
http://www.simoahava.com/tag/google-tag-manager
Twitter: @SimoAhava
For slides and helpful tutorial links, visit bit.ly/heweb16-aim3.