4 Benefits of Using Google Tag Manager
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Google Tag Manager is a powerful tool to have in your digital marketing toolbox. The best part is, it’s also free to use. While it can be a bit overwhelming at first, Google Tag Manager comes with a lot of benefits.
1. Helps Page Load Time
Websites often contain numerous snippets of code called “tags”. These tags collect information such as behavioural data, remarketing data, etc, and send it to properties such as Google Analytics. When a website contains a number of these tags, it can be difficult to manage and it also slows down your website. That’s where Google Tag Manager comes in. Google Tag Manager is a central location to create, manage and store your Analytics, Google Ads or any other third-party tags, such as a Facebook Pixel. Google Tag Manager removes the need to install each individual tag code on your website, improving your site speed.
Site speed has also become a vital component of your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) performance. Google favours websites in search results that load quicker for the user!
2. Less Reliance on Web Developers
Since you can create tags within the Tag Manager, you no longer need to reach out to your web developer every time you want to track an event on your website.
For example, say you want to track all the ‘Apply Now’ button clicks on your website. Without Google Tag Manager, a web developer would need to add code to that button in order for you to track it. With Google Tag Manager, you can easily track the button click via the button text (which would be Apply Now for this example).
This also streamlines the process of setting up any conversions/goals for campaigns you’re running. Follow this guide to setting up goals in Google Analytics.
3. Analytics Event Management
Google Universal Analytics doesn’t automatically create events such as video views, clicks, scrolls or downloads like GA4 (Google Analytics 4) does. If you want to track these, you can use Google Tag Manager to set them up and send them to your Google Analytics.
For example, say you want to track whenever someone downloads a PDF file hosted on your website. You would set up an Analytics Event Tag that only fires once someone downloads a PDF.
To ensure it only fires when a PDF is downloaded, you would set up your trigger to only track clicks that end with .pdf.
Once someone downloads the PDF, this event is automatically sent to your Analytics.
4. Third-party Pixel Management
You can also easily install any third-party pixels/tags such as your Facebook Pixel or LinkedIn Insights Tag with Google Tag Manager. You can use it to create events/conversions for your ad campaigns and send them back to their respective platforms. No web developer required!
Written by Cheryl Goeres
Want to learn how to use and set up a Google Tag Manager Account?
Jelly Academy offers a Google Tag Manager Masterclass to walk you through account set up and tag configuration.
