What Is Google Tag Manager and How Does It Work?

In 2012, Google introduced and released a new product of Google Analytics (GA), known as Tag Manager, Google Tag Manager or GTM. Google Tag Manager is a free tag management tool also called as a tag management system provided by Google. By this free online tool, you can install or use and run several marketing and analytics tags on a mobile app and website.

A lot of confusion is there about what Google Tag Manager is, what it does exactly, and how it is different from GA (Google Analytics). A popular confusion is that Google Tag Manager is the advanced version of GA and it has similar things as Google Analytics. Actuality, GTM is a totally different tool.

Google Tag Manager is a user-friendly tool that simplifies the procedure of adding JavaScript snippets to a site. Instead of inserting code on a site, you can choose the interface to determine what should be fire, what action and on what page. Google Tag Manager then adds the suitable tracking to your website to ensure it all works.
 

There are three main elements in Google Tag Manager:

1. Tag: A JavaScript snippets (JavaScript code) added to a webpage.
2. Triggers: It determines where and when tags will be executed.
3. Variables: It used to get and save information to be utilized by triggers and tags.

To create an account for Google Tag Manager, visit here google.com/tagmanager and signup for free for the service. After sign up your account, click on Accounts tab which is appearing on top left on navigation bar and then click on the “Create Account”.
 

See the screenshot below.

 
It will ask you to fill details like account name (you should use your company name) then it will ask you to about Service Agreement. Once this process has completed, you will get an account with a container.
 

Now about Containers:

A container keeps all the tags for a particular site. To make a new container, choose an account and then click on the Create Container button which is appearing in the top-right area. Once you have created a new container, the similar screen will appear.
 

 

Now about Tags

After creating a container, you can create tags for a specific site. Google offers templates for its own tags. Following are the tags which are supported by the tool.

• AdWords Conversion Tracking
• Universal Analytics
• DoubleClick Floodlight Counter
• DoubleClick Floodlight Sales
• GDN Remarketing
• Custom HTML Tags
• Custom Image Tags
• AB TASTY Generic Tag

To insert a tag to a container, select the tags box and click on the button of New Tag which is appearing on top-right area. See the above screenshot.

In this section, you can pick custom HTML tags or tag templates which are mentioned above. As we described above, Google offers templates for its own tags in order to reduce the chances of errors.
 

Now about Triggers

Once you select what tag to insert, you will be moved with some details to add for each tag type: e.g. Conversion Label and ID for AdWords Conversion Tracking. You can also add a trigger to fire the tag. Following screenshot is showing how the Google Analytics (GA) tag should be configured.
 

 
In the above screenshot The Fire On section defines the triggers under which tag will be fired. For tags that must use on all pages of site like Google Analytics (GA).
 

Publishing & Versions

Once you finished adding tags to a container, they will not publish automatically, you will have to publish it “manually”. Publishing is connected always to a container version.
Users can be added to accounts and container basis users should be added. For every container, there are 4 kinds of user access:

1. No access: In the account user can’t look the listed container.
2. View only: user can look the listed container and can use the tags, macros, and rules in the container, but user will not be able to edit them.
3. View and Edit: user can edit and add tags, macros, and rules in the container.
4. View, Edit, Delete and Publish: user can edit, delete, and add tags, macros, and rules in the container and user will be able to publish changes on the particular website.