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Google Tag Manager
Revolve Conference, Oct 29 2015
Tina Arnoldi
Marketing Consultant and Trainer
360InternetStrategy.com
Twitter: tinaarnoldi
YouTube: tinaarnoldi
SlideShare: tinaarnoldi
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What we’re doing today
• Overview of GTM.
• Who cares?
• Using it with Google Analytics & Events.
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What is a Tag?
• A chunk of code that records
something on your site and sends
the data to a third party.
• The action you want to measure.
• Requires a trigger in order to fire.
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What is Google Tag Manager (GTM)?
• Free tool
• Introduced in October 2012
• Requires a single snippet of code for recording
actions
• Web interface
• No need for IT to add or rewrite site code
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Now on V. 2 as of this year
• Terminology changes
• Event listeners already on
• Need to activate built-in variables
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How do I use it?
• The site owner should set up an account
– Then invite other users, such as an agency
• Create a container for your website
• Add the GTM tracking code to your site
• Add tags to GTM & publish from within GTM
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Um, what’s a container?
• A piece of code
• Unique ID (like with GA)
• One per web domain
• Placed after the opening tag
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Container versions
• Published vs Draft
• Can roll-back
• Doesn’t break tracking when updating
• Preview & debug before publishing
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A few more terms…
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Triggers
• Determine when a tag should fire, or..
– When an action should occur
• On all pages
• When ___ (button) is clicked
• When ___ (URL) ends with
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Variables
• Used to capture dynamic or constant
values
–Dynamic – Transaction value
–Constant – UA tag
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What is the Data Layer?
“Contains all of the information that
you want to pass to Google Tag
Manager”
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So should I use it?
• Maybe not….
• Do you need to add/change tags often?
• Do you have a lot of third-party
applications?
• Are you tracking a lot of Events in GA?
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Does this replace Google Analytics?
• No, it’s a way to deploy GA on your site.
• You still need GA but it’s now a tag in GTM
instead of code added directly to your site.
• GTM does not report on GA data.
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It tells your site…
• What to record…
• On which pages…
• And under which conditions
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What’s an “Event”?
• Not automatically tracked in GA
• Ex: Third-party links, click on mailto: or tel:,
video interaction
• Reference Web Afternoon SlideShare
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If you do use it… Have a plan
• What tags are there now?
• What do they do?
• On which pages?
• Is there a reason to add new tags?
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Think through existing/new Events
• What happened?
• What triggered it?
• Where did it happen?
• Category?
• Action?
• Label?
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Setup & Installation
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Debug & Versioning
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Let’s track some stuff….
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Start with an AllClicksTrigger
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Let’s look at this for the
Revolve Conference site
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Check if the install worked
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The Data Layer info is related to the click I just did on the previous screen
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Enable built-in variables to tell GTM you
want to use info from the Data Layer
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What’s unique here?
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Create a Trigger to tell a Tag when to fire
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Next, connect this
Trigger to a Tag to make
sure it works
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Auto pull in Element & Text
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Category: ButtonClick isn’t a great
name unless any button click is
what’s important.
Action: Pulls in click element
which is
revolveconference.com/register
Label: Pulls in click text which is
TICKETS- $499
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When will this tag fire?
(On the ButtonClick Trigger)
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Um, what was the Trigger again?
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So how does this look in
Google Analytics?
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Event Category
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Event Action
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Event Label
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ClarifyAndSimplify.com
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Build a Trigger, then the Tag..
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Category: ButtonClick
Action: ClickText(What
did the button say?)
Label: ClickURL (Where
did that click take the
visitor?)
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What if an existing
implementation is a mess?
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You want to avoid this - multiple tags
recording a single action
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#1 and #5 are the same action
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If you are doing clean-up
• What I clicked
• Where I was
• What fired
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“I didn’t understand
anything she said”
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My whole talk in 5 minutes
• GTM replaces tracking code on your site.
• All tags (like analytics) are entered in the GTM
web interface instead of hard-coded on the site.
• IT/Web – One time coding/install, no updates.
• Marketers – Add tracking without code
knowledge.
• Have a plan first.
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Q & A
Tina Arnoldi
Twitter: tinaarnoldi
YouTube: tinaarnoldi
SlideShare: tinaarnoldi