Google publicly announced Google Tag Manager, their newest product today at eMetrics in Boston. As Google Analytics Certified Partners, Location3 Media was fortunate enough to get a sneak peek at this new product and become Google Tag Manager Specialists! Here’s our scoop on Google’s newest toy.
What is Google Tag Manager?
Google Tag Manager is a free tool that fires marketing and measurement tags from within a single snippet of code. Once the snippet of code is placed, you can manage your tags whenever you want from the web interface, without the need to involve the IT staff every time you need another pixel placed.
What are the benefits?
This is a great boon to the client-agency relationship because it gives agencies like Location3 yet another tool to make it easier for clients to get found on the path to purchase. Now whenever an agency has an idea for a new remarketing list for a client, they don’t have to ask the client to get their IT team to place it and wait until it comes up in their queue, or possibly incur additional costs to the client if they rely on external IT support. Agencies can focus on managing the campaign, rather than managing the client’s IT staff’s expectation and understanding of what needs to be done.
Because Tag Manager is a Google product, it comes out-of-the-box with an easy system for adding AdWords conversion pixels, AdWords remarketing pixels, Google Analytics tracking code, and DoubleClick floodlight counter tags. This makes life easy for agencies that already have extensive experience with these types of marketing and measurement tags.
There is also a feature that enables you to add custom tags should the need arise (e.g. if you want to fire a tag after an action on a page has been executed). You can also use Macros, a user-defined set of variables, and Rules, conditions for the application of tags based on Macros, for more customization. At least one rule must be applied in order for a tag to fire, even if it is just an “all pages” rule, which Google has kindly set up for you by default.
How can I get started using Google Tag Manager?
Check it out on their website and sign up! You will need a willing client, the help of an IT team to place the container pixel (and possibly remove old pixels if you are migrating them to GTM) and someone dedicated to placing tags in the GTM interface. If you have questions or need help getting started, please feel free to reach out to us.