Google Tag Manager Review — Prt 2
By: Alexandra Poulopoulou
Tags: Digital Analytics, Google, Digital, Digital Marketing, Google Tag Manager

1. Install Google Tag Manager to your website

In order to start creating tags and collect some data, we need to install the Google Tag Manager (GTM) tag into our site’s source code. In the menu bar of your GTM container, you will find your container ID. When you click it, a pop-up should appear, like the following image:

Example of a Google Tag Manager tag

As you can see, you have available two tags, one for your head section and one for your body. You can install these scripts on every page of your site, using the instructions given in the pop-up.

2. Create your first tag: Google Analytics Page View

Our first tag should be no-other, than our basic Google Analytics snippet. Otherwise known as: Page View script.

Step 1: Find your Google Analytics Property ID following the steps below:

Sign in, into your Google Analytics account

Go to the admin section

Click on Property Settings

Copy the Tracking Id

Step 2: Sign in, into your Google Tag Manager container:

Sign in, into your Google Tag Manager account

Select your container, in which you want to install the Analytics tag

Step 3: Create your Universal Analytics variable:

Go to the Variables’ section appeared in the menu on your left

Go to the bottom of the page and create a user defined variable. In here, we want to define the Google Analytics property, in which we are going to send our data.

Select the Google Analytics settings variable, from the variables’ menu

variable, from the variables’ menu Paste the Tracking Id, you found in your Google Analytics property settings

Rename the variable with a descriptive name like: UA — Tracking ID

Save it

Step 4: Next on the process, the tag:

Go to the Tags’ section appeared in the menu on your left

Create a new Tag

Click the area Tag Configuration to configure your tag

Select from the tags’ menu the Google Analytics: Universal Analytics tag

Leave the Track Type on Pageview

Go to the Google Analytics settings area and select the variable we created (UA — Tracking ID)

Now, go to the triggering section and click to configure when we want this tag to fire.

Select the pre-built option: All Pages

Name it properly: GA — Page View

Save it

Step 5: Test your changes

Go to the Preview button and click it

Insert your website’s URL when GTM ask for it

Visit several pages on your site and check if your Page View tag fires properly.

If the tracking settings work as they should, you are ready to proceed with the Publish.

There you have it. Your first Google Tag Manager tag is up and running.

2. Scripts and Pixels

During the process of our Page View tag, you might notice the list with the available tags in Google Tag Manager.

Please visit this list now, as we talk.

As you can see from the list’s items, there are several pre-built-in options for you to select. You obviously have the Google tools’ tags: Google Analytics, Google Analytics 4, Google Ads Remarketing & Conversion, Floodlights, Google Optimize and Google Surveys Tracking.

Except from the Google Marketing Platform tools, you can have a variety of built-in tags from third-party providers like: Hotjar, Bing, Pinterest and many, many, MANY others. But as long as you search in this list, you will not find tags like Facebook Pixel (as for this day speaking). Weird, huh?

Well, before you close your Google Tag Manager’s window with sadness and despair, please select the Custom HTML option from your list.

So, let’s discuss about that…

Google Tag Manager is a very flexible tool and it is created to make your lives easier, not force you to make exceptions on your marketing tactics. It sure has a lot of built-in options for your tags, but it doesn’t stop there. Google Tag Manager’s people created the Custom HTML tag, in which you can insert all the other options that they don’t appear on that list. So, almost everything you were going to install hard-coded in your website’s source code, like a Facebook Pixel, you can put it there. See an example in the following image, where I create a Custom HTML tag, for my Facebook Pixel:

Facebook Pixel implemented using the Custom HTML tag

!!! You may have notice in the picture that I replaced the actual pixel with “XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX”. In your pixel, you should have a series of numbers in these positions.

Of course, when you create the Facebook Pixel tag, you should select your triggering option, in order for the tag to know when it should fire the Facebook Pixel pageview (in this example you should use the All Pages trigger, as in the Google Analytics’ tag before). Test and verify the elements that you‘ve created and if everything works as they should, Publish your changes to go live.