Understanding the Google Tag Manager

Widely known as GTM, the tool is a free tag management function offered by Google. Users can opt for the online tool that helps deploy and monitor different analytics tags on the mobile application or website. As for the tags, they are bunches of JavaScript codes used to collect, measure and analyze marketing data from the site or application. They then transmit the information to third-party services such as Google Analytics, Twitter, Comscore, and ad words among others.

Adding Tags through the GTM

Unlike other offline functions, online operations carry substantial risk. Every step faces millions of threats that could wipe out the entire system. While you could place tags directly on the website, using the tag manager gives you control on the timing, the location, and the specific tasks the tag should perform. As if not enough, you can easily remove, add and disable tags on the site. You can alter the functions of any tag. In the absence of the GTM, you can only add or remove tags, but cannot enable or disable tags on the website.

Disabling a tag calls for you to remove it from the template files while enabling requires you to add it to the template files. The task might turn tedious for large websites as it entails enormous code changes, and use of many tags. Similarly, altering the tag’s functionality requires manual checks on the files to edit the codes. In the event of a similar tag used across template files, the chances are that you will miss important updates causing discrepancies.

Your web development crew must work extra hard to keep your tags up with the changes, which might raise your maintenance costs. On the other hand, the tag manager helps you reduce the time, effort and costs involved giving your business a competitive edge.

What you stand to gain using the GTM

Every business wishes to improve functionality to cut costs and increase productivity. In a bid to achieve better control, you are likely to test the new version of GTM, but is it worth it? The following are some of the numerous benefits associated with the tool.

Automatic updates

Unlike the standard functions, GTM comes in handy towards eliminating the tedious processes involved in editing website codes. You just have to add, remove or enable tags without making targeted searches on the template files. With GTM, you just place one code on all pages of the websites- known as the container code. The code stores and deploys numerous marketing as well as analytics tags allowing users to add, remove, edit as well as disable tags with a few clicks of a button.

High efficiency

When it comes to tag testing and deployment, GTM makes it easy for you to test as well as deploy tags within a short window. You need not hard code tags every time on the site. The speed remains crucial if you are to compete with industry leaders and compete on all online fronts. Website delays could be detrimental to your ability to respond to market changes SEO and social media platforms. You will not have the luxury of weeks or months to add or remove tags and still compete on these fronts.

For most entrepreneurs, over-reliance on web developers on tasks associated with website coding makes them slow in adapting to the changes. For this reason, GTM eliminates the possible laxity that could delay product launches or re-launches allowing them to act within the set timelines. It takes minutes to install, edit or disable tags with a GTM installed on your website, hence no heavy code work or booking with IT specialists to operate.

Advanced tracking

Other than providing an interactive interface to the clients, a website ought to track the traffic and perhaps give leads to potential deals. However, it’s not by itself sufficient to perform the tasks without a GTM. It comes with various inbuilt tags that you can use to track data within set timelines. It means you can make changes to your strategy and include components that improve your competitiveness in the digital front. It becomes easy to measure the level of clicks hence the quantity of traffic generated by the site. Other than the task completion time, the tool eliminates possible errors that could arise from the tedious activity or a tired executive.

Improves the site’s loading speed

When its time to optimize your website, you have to do it for Search engines and the target audience. Previous studies show that online visitors prefer sites that load not more than 3 seconds t load as opposed to those that take more. The time required is likely to attract or repel potential clients who do not want to spend minutes scrolling a site.

On another front, the search engines will rank sites with high loading speeds greater than those that takes long to load. You want to achieve both if you need to increase online traffic. With GTM at your disposal, you can improve the site’s speed as tags are placed asynchronously. In such cases, the slow tags do not bar the fast ones from being executed, resulting in a higher loading speed.