Manage your online marketing tags centrally with Google Tag Manager

Google Analytics Tracking: This is How It's Done Today

Nowadays, many companies use either the old, classic Google Analytics or the new Google Analytics Universal. However, only a few integrate their Google Analytics Universal Tracking with the Tag Manager to more easily manage their online marketing activities. When various online marketing measures such as Google AdWords or other remarketing offerings from third parties are used in addition to website tracking, the necessary JavaScript tags are usually manually implemented by the IT department. Therefore, you and your company are likely facing the challenge of having to review the implementation of each new tag.

It's not surprising that the implementation of your online marketing measures is often handled by IT, as this is the current standard.

As you know, however, this approach is often cumbersome because your IT needs to be instructed and then monitored. Problems often arise because the implementation was not carried out according to the original plan. Consequently, you have to become active again, identify the problem, and forward the relevant instructions for adjusting the implementation to your IT department.

The Google Tag Manager now provides a remedy, allowing you to often proceed without the need for your IT department.

Google Tag Manager: How the New Tool Works

At first glance, the Tag Manager is nothing more than a Google webpage where various tracking measures are centrally controlled. It acts as an extension of Google Analytics Universal and outsources the control of all tracking. Furthermore, it can manage additional online marketing measures like Google AdWords, DoubleClick, or third-party activities.

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The Google Tag Manager Code[/caption]

First, the Tag Manager code must be embedded on the website. Through this, the control and management of various tags take place. A tag is a specific piece of JavaScript code. Therefore, when using the Tag Manager, it's usually only necessary to involve IT for code adjustments in exceptional cases, such as when integrating the Tag Manager code into the site's source code. Instead, marketing managers or web analysts can now make changes to the tags and tracking.

For error-free use of the Tag Manager, its functionality must first be examined more closely. This essentially relies on six elements:

• Account

• Container

• Data Layer

• Tag

• Rules

• Macro

Account:

An account essentially manages the login. Similar to the Google Analytics structure, one account per company should be set up. Within this account, containers for individual websites are managed. This way, a clear structure can be established in the Tag Manager, allowing each user to navigate easily.

Container:

Within an account, a container should be created for each website. Within this container, various tags necessary for Google Analytics tracking and various third-party tags are managed.

On the container level, the Google Tag Manager code needed to set up tracking through the Tag Manager is also managed. Once this code is incorporated into the page's source code, almost all tracking can be controlled without additional code needing to be built into the page. The Google Tag Manager code should also be supplemented by the Data Layer code (detailed description follows), which significantly expands the Tag Manager's potential.

The code itself should be placed directly behind the opening tag. There's no need to fear a reduction in loading time, as the code works asynchronously and can thus load alongside the normal code without affecting its loading time. Important: Once the code is in place and initial tags are used, their equivalents in the source code must be removed to avoid capturing duplicate data. This only applies if data is transferred twice to the same Google Analytics property. Therefore, it's important to ensure that Tag Manager data either runs into a separate property or that the normal Google Analytics code is removed from the page's source text.

In general, however, a separate property for the Tag Manager should be set up during a transition to compare the newly collected data with the 'old' data. This way, the functionality of the new tracking can be ensured.

Data Layer:

The Data Layer serves as an interface between the website and the Tag Manager. It essentially handles communication between the website and the tags that have been set up within a container.

To use the Data Layer, the following code must be embedded in the page before the Tag Manager code.

By using this code, content such as pages, events, categories, or transactions etc., can be sent to the Tag Manager. The Tag Manager then forwards this data to Google Analytics. This data transmission can be either dynamic or static.

Dynamic transmission is used, for example, for events, when it's not clear at the time of a page view which content should be transmitted to the Tag Manager. Static transmission, on the other hand, is used when website content is known in advance. This can be the case with e-commerce tracking, when product data is known in advance. In this case, the necessary data is pushed visibly into the Data Layer.

Tag:

Tags offer the possibility to collect various metrics from a website. As mentioned before, a tag is the piece of JavaScript code that forwards information to third parties. For instance, Google Analytics Universal uses a tag to collect required metrics such as page views and sends them to the Google Analytics server. There, the data is processed and then displayed in Google Analytics. But tags can also be used for remarketing, events, etc.

Since the Tag Manager now only works with a single piece of code on the actual website, all tags that should be used can be stored directly in the Tag Manager. There is a range of templates for this, e.g., for Google Analytics Universal, for AdWords, for DoubleClick, etc. Additionally, you can integrate your own tags and those from third-party suppliers.

Rule:

Rules in the Tag Manager determine when tags are triggered. They are managed on the container level and can therefore be used for several tags simultaneously. A rule might be that a tag is triggered on all pages of a domain. It can also be specified that a tag should only trigger on a single page and only if it's a specific referrer. Additionally, events etc. can also be set as rules.

Macro:

Macros store the data for further processing in the Tag Manager. They receive the data from the Data Layer of the website and hold it until further processing. Since data originates from various areas of a website, such as JavaScript, from events, from the DOM (Document Object Model) etc., there are different types of macros for storing data. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• URL Macro

• Custom Event Macro

• JavaScript Variable Macro

What We Can Do for You

If you're still using the classic Google Analytics and want to switch to the latest version of Google Analytics Universal Tracking, we can help you with the design and implementation of tracking. We develop a detailed tracking concept with you that is optimally tailored to your website and precisely determines which metrics should be collected on which pages. This way, you also have the opportunity to question and adjust your existing tracking concept if necessary.

For a short time now, it's no longer possible to create a property for the classic tracking code. A switch to the new Google Analytics tracking should therefore be done in a timely manner. Contact our experts, we are happy to help you optimize your tracking to increase leads and conversions.