Form in online marketing Google Analyticsthe Google Tag Manager, the Google Search Console and scripts etc. form the basis for a valid tracking concept. But what is it? [toc]

Our approach to online marketing with the Google Tag Manager

Whether you want to use Google Ads search text ads, Bing Ads ads, Facebook Sponsored Posts, Instagram Stories, any type of video advertising or recommendation networks (Taboola, Outbrain or Plista) or re-marketing systems (e.g. AdRoll) or SEO-optimized texts - the first step is to set up a meaningful tracking concept. Only with a sophisticated tracking concept can you save media budgets and SEO costs and optimize your chances of success. Only then can you start setting up online marketing campaigns, ad groups, ads and keywords, or SEO-optimized texts. Once the above-mentioned measures have been started, they will be specially adjusted at the beginning. After 2 - 4 months, the number of necessary optimization measures should only need to be reduced. With SEO, the effort per month remains relatively constant.

What is Google Tag Manager anyway?

Google Tag Manager facilitates the implementation of Google Analytics and other web analytics tools (e.g. MS Clarity) and cookies (e.g. Facebook Pixel) on your website. But other tools can also be integrated via the tag management system, usually without involving IT. This is a great advantage for online marketing managers without programming knowledge. You can find out how the Tag Manager works and for which areas it can be used here. Good examples of tags are Google Analytics tracking codes, Google Analytics event codes, Google Ads conversion scripts and remarketing tags. There are many other types of codes you can add to your website using GTM, including custom codes.

Some people confuse Google Tag Manager with Google Analytics and wonder which one they should use. Actually, the answer is that you should use both. In fact, the two are made for each other.

In the pre-GTM days, you had to write elaborate tracking codes yourself, configure them and place them manually on every page. With hundreds of events, this is a huge effort. GTM automatically stores all codes in a central location, where they can be configured without the need for a programmer.

What can you do with the Google Tag Manager, for example?

A few examples:

• Correction for correct measurement of the dwell time or bounce rate - more on this here or in the next section
• Complex conversion tracking (bookings, purchases, inquiries, newsletter subscriptions, measurement of PDF downloads, etc.)
• Telephone number click tracking
• Button click analysis - e.g. you have various buttons on a landing page. Which one is clicked how often?
• Outbound link click tracking (which links were clicked on how often - important, for example, to prove the indirect performance of DMOs to hotels)
• Extremely simple integration of tools such as MS Clarity, Hotjar or LeadInfo
• Text copied from users' pages (what was of particular interest?)
• Observation of the scroll depth of the most important pages (how long did a text actually interest/function)
• Creation of the Google Ads remarketing tag
• Measurement of the traffic source (where did my traffic originally come from)
• Display of publisher pages on recommendation networks such as Taboola or Outbrain
• Quickly recognize and fix 404 pages
• and much more.

Many more examples of the Google Tag Manager (GTM for short) can be found here.

The Google Tag Manager and fixing the problem with the dwell time

The dwell time describes how long a user stays on a page of the website. For many websites, it can be said that the longer the dwell time, the more interesting the content is for the user. This is not true for so-called one-pagers. Why? You need to know how the dwell time is actually measured. Google Analytics in its standard configuration measures the dwell time on the basis of page views. This means that the dwell time can only be calculated if there is a second page view. The dwell time is therefore the time that elapses between page view 1 and page view 2. But how many page views do your users make on average per session? This is where the problem begins. Users who only view one page per session are not included in the calculation of the average dwell time, as the dwell time of the individual visit cannot be determined. The bounce rate for these users is also 100%. The data and its significance are therefore usually distorted. This can be remedied via the Google Tag Manager by setting a ping at sensible intervals (e.g. at least 20 seconds) and thus asking: "Hey user, are you still there?". This gives you a reasonable unit of measurement for the length of stay and the bounce rate is no longer measured from page 1 to page 2, but from the entry page to the last ping.

The Google Marketing Platform with Google Tag Manager offers the following advantages

• Faster and smarter marketing: Since routine processes are automated, you have more time for strategic activities. Thanks to the system's built-in intelligence, you automatically gain accurate insights into ad trends and patterns.
• More control over your investments: You can easily see which areas of your marketing, including SEO, are working and make informed decisions to improve performance. At the same time, you can be confident that your ads are high quality and engaging.
• Deepen insight into your audience: You can integrate and access your data to get a more comprehensive picture of your users. Linking your data with cross-device and intent signals from Google can also help you identify the most valuable audiences.
• Share information with your team: With data and reports all in one place, everyone on your team has information about your audience, media and business results. Information can be shared with the team and marketing is optimized.
• Everything in one place: In the past, when tag management was still an unknown term, all tracking codes were coded directly in the source code of the website/application. The worst thing about this was that these small JavaScript code snippets were scattered across different pages. So if you needed to make a small change, the developer had to: (1) find all these codes, (2) update them. Thanks to GTM, this process is simplified: all tags are configured in one place.
• It's free: There are many similar tools out there, but hardly any offer as much as GTM and are free.
• Tag templates: In addition to the community, Google also supports marketers with own tag templateswhich reduce the effort.
• Restoration: Every time you change something on GTM, a new version is created. This means that if you have an "oops" moment, you can easily and quickly switch back to the previous version. This minimizes the damage and again reduces the effort to reset everything.
• Working in a team: With the GTM, you can grant several people access to your account, with different authorization levels for viewing, editing and publishing. This feature is especially handy for agencies that want to grant access to multiple employees or need to share access with clients, ensuring that only certain people have primary control.

Is Google Tag Manager GDPR compliant?

Web admins who are already unconvinced by German data protection officers about IP-anonymized Google Analytics will hardly be convinced by Google Tag Manager either. However, if such "candidates" then use Google Web Fonts, Google or Bing Maps or even YouTube videos on their websites without a consent management solution such as Cookiebot, they are beyond help. (Please note: For all tools that could touch US servers, users must at least be made aware of NSA & Co. in the privacy policy). For "experts", this sometimes leads to frustrating discussions based on even more bizarre "claims":

What T3N on Google Tag Manager.

Google Tag Manager - now also available as a server-side version

This video explains what this means: