If you’re looking to track and monitor your business online to understand how to market it better, Google Tag Manager (GTM) is the way to do it. Your website is an important business asset that helps grow your small business, so it’s crucial to understand your customer behaviour better. Most businesses today are now moving towards a tag management marketing system because it provides more refined results.If you’re looking to do the same, you’ve come to the right place. But before we dive into more detail, let’s understand what Google Tag Manager is and how it is an important tool in digital marketing.
What is Google Tag Manager?
Google Tag Manager is a free tag management platform that helps create, manage, and launch “tags” or pieces of code/tracking pixels (JavaScript or HTML) on your website. These tags track analytics and data on the website and mobile apps and share that data to platforms such as Google Analytics.
Websites usually use a number of different tags. So, the amount of code needed to create them all can be overwhelming, especially if you’re trying to add tags directly into the site’s source code. Google Tag Manager removes the need to go into the source code, thereby eliminating the need for an expensive web developer every time you need to add something to your website. As a marketer or business owner, GTM will allow you to track conversions and carry out retargeting smoothly, by reading the results on Google Analytics.
Sometimes people confuse Google Tag Manager with Google Analytics and vice versa. However, Google Analytics is actually a tag in Google Tag Manager. Using Google Analytics in conjunction with Google Tag Manager will reap the best results.
How do Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics work together?
Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics are the fundamentals of digital marketing. Together, they perform different functions and combine their results in an efficient way. While Google Tag Manager focuses on data tracking and logging, Google Analytics houses this data, which can be used to create reports and analyze later on. When used correctly, these tools are a force to be reckoned with.
In order to understand how to use these tags for business marketing, let us introduce you to the crucial components of Google Tag Manager.
Crucial components of Google Tag Manager:
Containers: Containers house your tags and allow them to be updated automatically. When you have a new tracking tag, instead of copy-pasting it to every web page, you can do it directly on Google Tag Manager. The container will directly do it for you. Each container has tags and triggers.
Tags: Tags, as mentioned earlier, are snippets of code that send important information to third-party tools, like Google Analytics. These tags track what is happening on each of your web pages. Tag tracking in marketing also helps you understand when your code isn’t working properly. This lets you figure out where you need to go in and change the code.
Triggers: Triggers help inform Google Tag Manager when the data should be sent over to other applications, such as Google Analytics for interpretation. For instance, the trigger is what helps you analyze how many pageviews your website got, or how many products people clicked on.
Variables: There are two types of variables in Google Tag Manager: Built-in variables and user-defined variables. Built-in variables are exactly what their name suggests, pre-configured variables in the system. They usually help describe activities such as form completions. Whereas user-defined variables are variables defined by people like you and me. For instance, you can set up a variable to track how many of your visitors are coming from organic searches.
Operators: Operators define the relationship between variables and values. They help determine when a trigger can be fired. For instance, some operator terms included are “equals,” “contain,” or “doesn’t contain.”
Values: Values help you customize triggers and data collection.
Now that you’re familiar with the components that play a huge role in Google Tag Manager’s functionality, it’s important to look into the benefits of using GTM for small businesses.
The benefits of using Google Tag Manager:
Add new tags and update old ones
GTM lets you update your tracking settings fast. Your tags, triggers, and variables get updated instantly, whether you’re using one or more containers.
Generates higher leads and conversion rates
By tracking user behaviour and movement, GTM allows you to understand your audience on a much deeper level. This, in turn, helps you create content and marketing strategies that boost your leads and conversion rates.
Check for errors and fix problems
Google Tag Manager helps you spot errors quickly and efficiently. Whether you made a mistake during setting up your triggers, tags, or variables, leave it up to GTM to tell you. This allows you to go in and update the errors so that everyone functions effectively.
Add customized data layer
This customization provides you with the ability to do in-depth tracking, which in turn generates deeper insights. Google Tag Manager data layer lets you see data at a more granular level, which creates even more detailed reports to analyze.
Values security and privacy
GTM makes it easier to keep your website clean and malware attack-free. It individually scans every tracking code entered into the software and stops immediately if it detects malware IP addresses, URLs, or domain names.
Gets fast results
Earlier, changing and adding codes or tags to websites often took days. GTM provides fast results. You no longer require a web developer to create a ton of different codes for different web pages. Everything is quick and organized.
Cost-efficient tool
It is a free tool. It is easy to set up and use. As mentioned earlier, it is also a place where all your tracking codes or tags are stored, which makes it an efficient tool to use in marketing your business.
What does GTM track?
PDF downloads: Oftentimes businesses provide downloadable guides or resources for customers to learn more about the company from. GTM provides the perfect way to track audience engagement and interest in these resources.
Scrolling behaviours: Understanding scrolling behaviour gives you insight into how your audience is visiting your website.
Link clicks: This helps you understand how your audience came onto your website and where what they do on there.
Form submissions: Form submissions include signing up for newsletters, questionnaires, events, etc. GTM helps you understand how many people are reacting to those specific events.
Video activity: It helps you understand how your audience reacts to your video content.
In our opinion, using these analytical tools correctly will give you an edge over your competitors. Want to know why? We’ve broken it down for you.
Why are analytics important?
No matter what type of business you have, analytics provide you with crucial insights on user movement and important information on how you can improve your website and the content in it. Collecting and comprehending this data helps generate more leads, has higher conversion rates, and improves performance and website usability.
Although Google Tag Manager is a great tool to help you grow your business, it does require in-depth knowledge in using the platform. GTM reduces your reliance on developers for sure, but to get optimal results, it needs to be handled by someone who has the technical skills needed to put in container codes for pages on your website. You need a professional marketer on your side. Once you have that under control, your business is going to grow in leaps and bounds.
At Digital Hot Sauce, we work with all our clients to ensure that we’re getting the best results on GTM and Google Analytics so that we can formulate and launch a solid marketing strategy for them. If you have questions about how you can set up Google Tag Manager, or are wondering about creating marketing strategies to help your business grow, contact us for a free audit today.
