Google Tag Manager (GTM) has revolutionized the way we implement scripts and tags on websites. However, many marketers aren’t fully utilizing this tool or capitalizing on its potential benefits.
Here are five easy and impactful ways to use GTM. These tips will help you improve your analytics dashboards, your SEO results and your marketing automation programs.
1. Improve the accuracy of website traffic data
Marketers often need to identify and isolate various types of traffic in Google Analytics dashboards and reports. For example, many companies want to eliminate spam or internal (employee) traffic and visits from partners. Typically, they do this by using excluding filters in Google Analytics.
Google Analytics limits the number of filters to 100. If you have a large number of internal IPs you wish to exclude, I recommend that you use GTM to implement blocking triggers. Blocking triggers are built with a custom variable and a custom event trigger.
Keep in mind that if you use a blocking trigger, these traffic types will be excluded from any or all Google Analytics views — including the unfiltered view.
2. Implement structured data
Structured data is a key way to improve organic search results, but it can be difficult for marketers to implement — especially if you need to rely on technical resources. Google Tag Manager makes it easy for non-developers to implement structured data on any page of a website.
For more information on how to do this, see “How to add schema markup to your website using Google Tag Manager.”
3. Ensure accurate indexing
With Google Tag Manager, we can define URL variables to strip out any additional parameters that might have been added. Then, we can build a custom HTML tag with JavaScript code to insert self-referencing canonical tags in the <head> section of the page. This ensures that no variation of a URL except the default one is indexed by Google.
You can follow the same logic to insert mobile switchboard tags — if your website uses a mobile subdomain.
4. Import marketing automation parameters
Most companies use marketing automation software to capture lead data and track leads through the sales funnel. With Google Tag Manager, you can easily implement lead-tracking parameters and marry this data with Google Analytics information.
With the built-in variable of first-party cookie, Google Tag Manager can pass lead ID number, along with other parameters, into Google Analytics.
5. Understand website behavior
With Tag Manager, it’s easy to track user behavior, actions and conversions with auto events. For example, you can track clicks on certain areas of a page, interactions with a video, or users’ scrolling behavior.
Auto events can also track downloads and form submissions. These insights are essential to help marketers improve engagement and conversion.
Reap the benefits of GTM
Are you at the mercy of your company’s limited technical resources? Are you waiting for web developers to implement what you need to improve marketing results?
Take control of your own destiny and learn to use Google Tag Manager. Utilizing a container like GTM can be a liberating experience for a digital marketer.
Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
