Google Tag Manager (GTM) is a powerful tool that allows website owners and marketers to easily manage and track various marketing tags and analytics codes on their website. GTM can streamline the process of adding tracking tags to your website, without requiring any coding skills. With GTM, you can add tags for Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, AdWords Conversion Tracking, and many more.
Using Google Tag Manager can save you time, reduce the risk of errors, and provide valuable insights into the performance of your website. However, it can be intimidating for beginners who are not familiar with its interface and terminology. In this blog post, we will provide an introduction to GTM and walk you through the process of setting up your first tag, making it easy for you to get started with GTM and take advantage of its benefits.
First Understanding Tags and Why They’re Needed to Help Your Website
Tags are snippets of code that are added to a website to track various user interactions and behaviors. Tags are used to measure website traffic, monitor user engagement, and track conversions. In essence, tags provide valuable data that can be used to improve the performance of a website and its marketing campaigns.
Google Tag Manager simplifies the process of adding and managing tags on a website. With GTM, you can add and remove tags without having to edit your website’s code, making it a much more flexible and efficient solution. GTM also allows you to configure tags based on specific conditions, such as page views, button clicks, or form submissions.
By using Google Tag Manager, you can save time and reduce the risk of errors that can occur when manually adding tags to your website. Additionally, you can gain valuable insights into the behavior of your website visitors, allowing you to optimize your website and marketing campaigns for better performance.
How to Get Started with the Google Tag Manager?
Here are the steps to get started with Google Tag Manager.
- Create an Account and a Container
To get started with Google Tag Manager, the first step is to create an account. You can sign up for free at the Google Tag Manager website using your Google account credentials.
Once you’ve signed up, you’ll need to create a container for your website. The container is a snippet of code that you’ll need to add to your website’s HTML. It serves as a container for all the tags you want to add to your website. You can create multiple containers for different websites or sections of a website.
- Add Snippet of Code to Your Website
After creating your container in Google Tag Manager, the next step is to add the container snippet of code to your website’s HTML. You can find the container snippet of code in the GTM interface, under the “Install Google Tag Manager” section.
Simply copy the container snippet of code and paste it into the header section of your website’s HTML code. This will activate the GTM container on your website and allow you to start adding tags to it. Once you’ve added the container snippet of code, you can start configuring your tags in GTM.
- Add Tags Including Google Analytics
After adding the GTM container snippet of code to your website, you can start adding tags to your GTM account. GTM supports a wide range of tags, including Google Analytics, AdWords Conversion Tracking, Facebook Pixel, and many more.
To add a tag in GTM, click on “Tags” in the left-hand menu and then click on the “New” button. You can then select the type of tag you want to add and configure its settings. For example, to add Google Analytics, you would select the “Google Analytics: Universal Analytics” tag type and enter your Google Analytics tracking ID.
Once you’ve added your tags, you can preview and publish your changes to your website.
- Add a Firing Rule
After adding your tags to GTM, you can set up firing rules to determine when your tags should be fired on your website. Firing rules specify the conditions that must be met for a tag to fire.
To create a firing rule in GTM, click on “Triggers” in the left-hand menu and then click on the “New” button. You can then select the trigger type you want to use, such as “Page View” or “Click.” You can then configure the trigger settings based on the specific conditions you want to use.
Once you’ve created your firing rules, your tags will fire automatically based on the conditions you’ve specified.
- Click Publish
After you’ve added your tags and set up your firing rules, the final step is to click the “Publish” button in GTM. This will make your changes live on your website and your tags will start firing based on the rules you’ve set up.
It’s important to preview your changes before publishing to ensure everything is working properly. You can do this by clicking on the “Preview” button in GTM and testing your tags on your website.
In conclusion, Google Tag Manager is a powerful tool that allows website owners to easily manage and track various website tags. With its intuitive interface and easy-to-use features, it’s an essential tool for any website owner looking to improve their website’s performance and gain valuable insights into user behavior.
