Google Tag Manager Guide - How To Use GTM

07/11/2018

Google Tag Manager Guide

ADSCELERATE MARKETING PRESENTS

MEGA-GUIDE to using Google Analytics with GTM

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Google Tag Manager Guide

About The Author Jonathan Ang

Digital Strategist, Agency Owner I've been in the digital marketing space for 8 years and have been on the cutting edge of advertising technology.

I run Adscelerate Marketing, a performance driven digital marketing agency that focuses on Search (SEO) and Paid Traf c.

Connect on LinkedIn:Â https://rplg.co/jonathan

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Google Tag Manager Guide

Skip to content A wise man once said this:

This is true for the digital marketing world. If you don’t track where your marketing spend is going to and how effective they are, your company is likely wasting the majority of the advertising budget, not just half.

Thankfully, it’s not dif cult to implement some basic tracking provided free, by Google. In this 4500 words mega-post I’m going to give you a step-by-step guide on how to implement Google Analytics using Google Tag Manager or GTM as it would be referred to for the rest of the article. *Preface: This is a guide meant for business owners and marketers who struggle with wrapping their head around GTM, like myself! True story.

Introduction to Tracking, Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager At Adscelerate Marketing, whether our clients are doing Search Engine Optimization or Adwords Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns with us, we always audit and implement tracking before anything else.

Few things you need before we begin: Google Analytics ID Google Tag Manager Account Veri ed Google Search Console

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Google Analytics (GA) is a free analytics tool that is very suitable for most businesses needs. Thankfully. Unless you are a pretty big enterprise or a Fortune 500 company with complex analytics needs, then we’ll go into the realm of Google Analytics 360 or other enterprise tracking solutions which would cost USD 150,000 per year and up. phew.

For all intents and purposes, Google Analytics will be the central hub to all our analytics needs. Where users come from (Acquisition) to how long they stay or what pages they read on your site (Behaviour), to whether they purchase from you or submit an enquiry form (Conversion).

So you see, if you don’t implement any tracking, you don’t know what works, even when something does.

Just by implementing tracking, you can do these two things which will easily increase your return-of-investment.

1) You will be able to eliminate channels which do not work for you. Say you are spending money on a display campaign, but from analytics, you can determine that the traf c quality is poor. Boom, instant money savings.

2) You can double-down on channels which are very effective for you. Say you are running Facebook Campaigns and statistics show that the campaigns work very well. You will then devote more resources to Facebook and scale up.

I’ll probably do a post on Google Analytics for Business Owners separately since the focus today is on how to demystify Google Tag Manager (GTM).

If you don’t have any of these, sign up for them rst:

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Google Analytics here: https://analytics.google.com/ Google Tag Manager here: https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/tag-manager/ Google Webmaster Tools: https://www.google.com/webmasters/ Note: For the majority of the screenshots you see in the rest of the articles, sensitive information in the screenshots will be blurred for privacy.

Why Google Tag Manager? According to Google, it’s supposed to manage tags (tracking code etc) easy.

Well, to be honest, it took me a while to get over the initial hurdle as well. First the shock, and then the AHA moment. GTM is indeed made for marketers to make life easier. The goal of this article is to get you there just a little sooner than it got me. Cool?

In case you are still confused about what GTM is at this point:

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So before GTM, you have to open up the website, dig into the code and insert your tracking script and other code. Now, the box is the gateway to drop all your code snippets in an easy manner without having to do any coding on your website (mostly). And yes, you can switch codes, start OR stop a tracking code without having to bother your developer (mostly!).

Pardon the ugly drawing. Hope this analogy works for you!

It’s oversimplifying things, of course!

So now that you’ve signed up to Google Tag Manager – Click on Create Account to start. I would break it down into one account per site. Just follow the procedure until you reach the Install Google Tag Manager Screen, like so: Step 1:

Step 2:

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Step 3:

Step 4:

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Okay so at rst glance this seems scary if you don’t know any code whatsoever. Just hand this off to your developer and they should know what to do. Or else, consult Youtube.

If you know how to nd where your <head> and <body> portions of your website, then just drop the codes in the areas the instructions have told you to do so.

This is just about the only thing you need to do get Google Tag Manager to work for you.

Now you have the gateway to your website installed. Let’s dive right into GTM!

How to implement Google Analytics with GTM First off, let’s go grab our Google Analytics Tracking ID. Once you’ve logged in, follow these steps. The GA Code for Universal GA looks like this UA-11111111-1.

Log into Google Analytics, then go to your Admin Panel.

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Go to the Property Settings and you’ll nd your tracking ID.

Write it down on Notepad or something, and head back to the GTM dashboard.

Now before I show you “what“ to do with it, I’m going to teach you “how and why” to do it.

I’m going to drill this concept throughout this article until you nally get it. This concept help you understand Google Tag Manager and to stop fearing it.

Google Tag Manager works with a Tags and Triggers concept.

Now if you’ve heard of If This, Then That (IFTTT), it works with the same principle. Like so:

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If Milo is HOT (If This), Then Put Some Ice (Do That) If Milo is Not HOT (If This), Then Drink (Do That)

And who doesn’t like iced milo with heaps of extra powder?

Need More Examples?

If it Rains (If This), Then Bring Umbrella (Do That) In Google Tag Manager, Triggers are the (If This), and Tags are the (Do That) So with that analogy, let’s revisit how to use Google Analytics with GTM. Your Google Analytics ID that you have written down earlier is your (Tag).

Concept Drilling Time. IFTTT Folks.

If URL = X (Trigger), Then Put GA Code (Tag.) Let’s go ahead and add your GA ID as a Tag like so:

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Every Tag is always matched up with a Trigger. Cause (Trigger) & Effect (Tag).

Now, where do you want your Google Tracking Code to go to? Probably every page on the site right?

Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s create a Trigger that occurs for every page then. Click on the + Sign to create a New Trigger and add All Pages.

So now, we basically have a trigger-tag pair.

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The thought process goes like this: Now all you need to do is to hit “Submit”, and you are done!

You have successfully implemented Google Analytics using GTM. Not too dif cult right?

Now some people will ask, Jonathan, what if I don’t want the GA script to be ring on every page?

Well sure!

All you need to do is to change the trigger. I’ll normally create a new one. Do it like so:

Click on the + Sign

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Name Your Trigger, and Click on the Pencil Sign

Choose the Page View Trigger:

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Select “Some Page Views”, Choose “Page URL”, and then I’ll put the URL string in.

In this case, if I want to create a thank you page at www.adscelerate.com/thank-you, I will put “thank-you” in the 3rd column. Do note that the logic “contains” will trigger if you have similar naming pages such as thank-you-all. So if you do have similar naming pages you might want to consider changing “contains” to “equals” and use the full URL.

Done! You just need to click Save and Submit.

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Now you have a trigger that res at your page(s) of choice!

Which leads us to the next common question we have. How do we track Adwords conversions?

Read the Rest of the Guide Here:Â https://goo.gl/3KDNBd

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