Deploying Google Tag Manager to Accelerate Site Speed and Connect All Onsite Data Sources
Estimated Time to Implement: 1 Day (Code + QA)
Who You Need to Include: IT or Web Developer
Google Tag Manager (GTM) is a free tool used to deploy all web tracking, remarketing, and 3rd Party Vendor pixels on your site, from one simple to use console.
Rather than relying on IT or Development Engineers to add or remove pixels by hard-coding them into your site, you can have IT implement GTM only. From there you can log in to GTM and add or remove pixels and code yourself without having to know html or php or java script, or any other code language. The second advantage to GTM is that you only have one piece of external code on your site, hosted on Google’s ultra fast cloud. Rather than slowing your site down with multiple 3rd Party tracking pixel’s and extraneous java script calls, your site will only have to ping GTM once per page load, greatly enhancing your site speed.
Overview of Tags
A tag (often called a “pixel”) is a piece of code that performs a given task on your site. Tags are typically javascript and can be used to do things like gather analytics data, deploy advertising or run third party tools. Implementing new tags requires someone to add code to the site. A Tag Management Solution enables site owners to implement one tag in the site code (the tag management tool) and then add other tags using the tag management console, which doesn’t require any code knowledge and speeds up the time it takes to launch new services and reduces tag errors.
Sign Up
To sign up for GTM, all you need is your Google Gmail Address/Account to which you want all your Analytics, PPC, SEO, Social, and 3rd Party Vendors to associate with. Sign into GTM and follow the prompts.
Create the Account
Once you log in with your Gmail address, you need to set up an account. You will need to name this account. We are using “My eCommerce Business” as an example. It is a best practice to have one account for your business, but you can have multiple instances (Containers) of GTM deployed. For example, if you own several web domains or eCommerce businesses, you would want one account but set up separate instances for each business.
You can choose to either anonymously share your data with Google for benchmarking or not, it doesn’t make a difference in the level of GTM performance.
Name the Container
The next step is to name the container. The container is the part of GTM code that you place on your website just once. And within the container you can add multiple types of pixels, tracking code or java script. We are naming this test container “eComm Widget Store” - it is best to give it a name that represents the site you plan to deploy on (in case you have several sites or businesses).
Website & Apps
GTM can be used for both Websites and Apps. For this ebook we are focusing only on eCommerce websites. You will need to click the Web Pages button, then select add domain, and enter your website address, in this case we are using the fictitious www.myecommwebsite.com domain. Additionally, you will have to select your time zone.
Set Up Account and Container
You must accept Google Tag Manager Terms of service Agreement.
Place GTM Code
At this point you will receive your GTM code. You will have to copy this code and place it on your website. It needs to be inserted site-wide on every page using your CMS (content management system) template. You will probably have to have IT or a web developer do this for you.
The process is a bit simpler if you are using a 3rd Party CMS like WordPress, Shopify, Webly, etc.
and we will cover these later in the ebook.
NOTE: It is very important that the code is inserted right after the first <body> tag of your website.
Complete
A side note, if you do not have Google Analytics installed or do not have a Google Analytics account you can also start that from the GTM console. Once you have gone through setting up each eCommerce Analytics component GTM will tie-in all of the tracking pixels, accounts and codes.
Need help setting up your eCommerce Analytics? We'll walk you through it! Schedule a free half hour appointment.
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