Danielle Oria

by Danielle Oria | Search Marketing Strategy

Google Tag Manager, or GTM, is the most common tag management solution currently in use by our clients. Like other tag managers, it allows you to combine all of your tags in one place instead of having to hard code and troubleshoot each one individually. While a different tag management solution may fit your needs better, we have had the most experience with GTM and can offer more insights into this platform.

Pros and cons of GTM

Google Tag Manager can help you simplify the tracking code on your website. Image via Pexels.

Pros

  1. GTM is free and signup takes just a few minutes. After completing your registration, you will be provided the unique container code for your website.
  2. There are a significant number of guides, forums, help topics, and blogs online to aid in setup and implementation of GTM.
  3. GTM works with all pixels, not just Google products.
  4. There are various levels of access that can be granted for quality control. For example, your marketing team can add a tag in the container but your developer has to be the one to push it into production.
  5. The data layer, which is an object coded onto the site that passes information to GTM, is extremely flexible. It can send information like page category, order value, even event actions as variables to be used by GTM when firing pixels.
  6. GTM has an easy interface that helps guide setup. Adding new tags can take just minutes, especially for common tags like AdWords. All it requires is identifying information, any variables required, and what pages you want to trigger the tag.

Cons

  1. You will likely need a developer to set up the data layer on the site to send back into GTM, as that does require additional setup outside of placing the container code.
  2. While Google does provide guidance on initial setup and the structure of the data layer, there is no dedicated support team like there are for other tag management systems to help set up and maintain implementation.
  3. While flexible, GTM is a simpler tag management system. If you require a lot of specialty support and need a team to implement it for you, a paid system may better suit your needs.

No matter what system is best for you, tag managers like GTM can greatly reduce the time and effort it takes to get new tags implemented on your site.

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