3 Reasons to Use Google Tag Manager

by | March 8, 2016

Does this sound like you?

Your developers, SEO and paid search teams have come together to build a website that is driving traffic in volumes and surpassing your most optimistic estimates. Plus, the reports you’re getting from Google Analytics tell a positive story of highly engaged users.

From Google Analytics, you are learning how users came to your site, what pages they visited and how they engaged with your content.

But this data only tells part of the story. You want to know more about what users are actually doing on your site. Google Tag Manager is a free, effective tool that tracks user behavior.

What is Google Tag Manager?

Google Tag Manager (GTM for short) is a free easy-to-install service offered by Google. GTM allows you to set up an interface to build “Tags” (also known as pixels) to track and evaluate visitor interactions on your site through Google Analytics as Events and Goals.

You will gain valuable information about your audience reach, visitor experience and navigation, and path to conversion.

Why Use Google Tag Manager?

Here are three top reasons to start using Google Tag Manager on your site:

  1. Streamline your tags: Adding and managing tags can be time-consuming and messy. With GTM, you do not need to re-code your site. GTM provides your development team with a block of code to add to the opening <body> tag of each page you want to track.
  2. Improve site function: Once in place, the GTM online menu interface allows you to immediately build, test and publish your tags within minutes. Because the tracking tags are not hard coded, your site load time, a critical component of the user experience, can improve and may reduce visitor site abandons due to slow load times.
  3. Benefit from versatility: The data from these tags is not just limited to Google properties such as AdWords and DoubleClick. You can also collect multiple third-party applications such as Comscore, Facebook and Marin. You can add further customization by using HTML and JavaScript-based tags, variables, and triggers.

How to Implement Google Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager opens up a universe of new data and analytics possibilities to uncover new insights into your website performance. Charles River Interactive (CRI) has developed an end-to-end strategic and targeted GTM implementation approach with our search partners. We lay the GTM framework with defined goals, naming conventions, and deployment stages. Instead of a flood of raw data, CRI lets your metrics tell a story about your audience and their experience on your site. This brings about actionable insights and solutions to improve your website and marketing strategies.

Helpful Tools to Learn Google Tag Manager

Interested in learning more about GTM and how to apply it? Here are some helpful tools and resources:

Interested in learning more about how to leverage Google’s tools for your marketing goals? Read more from our blog, View from the Charles:

Google SERP News: Right rail ads are gone
How to Launch Smarter Campaigns with Google Customer Match