Google Tag Manager Faq: 50+ Most Common Questions About GTM

1. WHAT IS GOOGLE TAG MANAGER?

Google Tag Manager is a tool offered by Google which enables you to manage various tracking codes (marketing tags, analytics tags) and other code snippets on your website/web app/mobile app. Herea re several examples of tags that can be deployed via GTM:

• Google Analytics tracking code (Pageview Tag)
• Google Analytics Event
• Facebook Pixel code
• Google Adwords Conversion Code Snippet
• A code snippet of your email marketing tool which displays a popup, etc.

Prior to the dawn of Tag Management tools, all those codes/tags had to be implemented by the IT/developers. Now, a lot of things can be done without them.

Here’s an alternative description posted by Simo Ahava after someone asked can he explain the value of GTM in one sentence:

It’s an asynchronous JavaScript library, which consolidates the design, deployment, and management of JavaScript-based code snippets across websites and hybrid apps, leveraging a common, global data structure for the distribution of semantic information to and from the digital property to which it is deployed, empowering its users with the skills and terminology associated with the modern web tech stack, facilitating discourse between analysts, developers, designers, and anyone else who might want a piece of the data pie, and offering the full power and spectrum of the latest versions of some of the most popular analytics and advertising libraries out the – and all this for free, while keeping in mind the caveat that just because it is free and has a ton of uses it doesn’t mean GTM is for everyone, since the complexity might come as a surpsise, as might the understated requirement to have some proficiency with JavaScript.

Well said, although it’s a monstrosity, not a regular sentence 

2. WHAT CAN I DO WITH GOOGLE TAG MANAGER?

With Google Tag Manager, you can track various interactions and then send captured data to 3rd party tools like Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Google Adwords, etc. The list of interactions you can capture (but not limited to):

• Link clicks
• Button clicks
• Video player interactions (Youtube, Vimeo, and others)
• Social interactions
• Scrolling
• When a particular element appears on the screen
• Form submissions
• Soundcloud, Mixcloud players
• Disqus, Facebook comments
• Chats like Tawk.to or Zendesk (previously Zopim)
• Spot the moment when the visitor is about to leave the website
• etc.

The list of tools that you can further pass the captured data to is also unlimited, to name a few:

• Google Analytics
• Google Adwords
• Hotjar
• Twitter Pixel
• Facebook Pixel
• AdRoll
• Mixpanel
• Inspectlet, etc.

Also, with Google Tag Manager, you can set and read cookies, do some witty stuff (like Konami code), and much more.

3. WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF GOOGLE TAG MANAGER?

The main GTM benefits are:

1. Google Tag Manager makes the tag/code deployment faster. You don’t have to wait for the IT department to implement some changes (usually), as you can publish new tags by yourself (in most cases).
2. All tags are controlled in one place.
3. In addition to the built-in debugging console, you can also use various browser extensions to make the testing process faster and more efficient.
4. Its free version is feature-rich and more than enough to small/medium businesses.
5. Growing popularity and helpful communities. The more popular GTM is, the more free/paid resources you’ll find, therefore your learning process will be faster.

4. WHO SHOULD USE GOOGLE TAG MANAGER?

Anyone who wants to add/remove/edit various tracking codes on their (or their client’s) website. This usually includes digital marketers, web analysts, SEOs, PPC specialists, owners of e-commerce businesses, etc.

With Google Tag Manager you’ll be much more in control of what’s being tracked/measured on a website/app.

5. DOES GTM WORK ONLY WITH GOOGLE PRODUCTS?

No. Google Tag Manager plays well with a lot of platforms/tools. It offers a wide range of predefined tag templates (like Google Analytics, HotJar, Twitter Universal Tag, etc.) and, additionally, you can add custom codes with help of Custom HTML tag.

A good example would be Facebook Pixel. Even though there’s no ready-made temple for it, you can still easily implement it with Custom HTML and Custom Image Tag.

6. IS GOOGLE TAG MANAGER FREE?

GTM has both Free and Premium plan. A free plan is more than enough to small and medium businesses. Large enterprises can benefit from a paid Google Tag Manager 360 option.

7. IS THERE AN ALTERNATIVE TO GOOGLE TAG MANAGER?

Yes, there is. And, actually, more than one:

• Matomo (previously known as Piwik)
• Tealium
• Dynamic Tag Management by Adobe
• Ensighten and others

8. HOW TO INSTALL GOOGLE TAG MANAGER?

After you create a Google Tag Manager account and container, you’ll get two codes.

Ask developer (or, if you have access, do it by yourself) to place them to website’s source code. The first code (surrounded by <script> and </script>) should be added to the <head> part of the website, while the second (<noscript></noscript>) should be added right after the opening <body> tag of a website.

If you’re using a popular content management system, chances are that there’s an existing Google Tag Manager plugin which makes the installation a bit easier + might give you some additional (and useful) settings.

9. HOW TO INSTALL GOOGLE TAG MANAGER ON A WORDPRESS SITE?

There are two ways how to do that:

• By adding container codes directly into the website’s source code.
• Or by using a plugin.

As for the 1st option, go to your WordPress Admin panel, navigate to Appearance > Editor and edit the Header.php file. Lunametrics have published a guide how to do that.

Personally, I recommend the second option, using a plugin. But not just any plugin, the GTM4WP plugin, also known as GTM plugin by DuracellTomi.

• Go to the plugin page on WordPress.org
• Download the plugin in a .zip file
• Unpack the downloaded file
• Upload it to your WordPress installation using an FTP client into wp-content/plugins
• Go to your WordPress admin panel
• Enable the plugin under Plugins / Installed plugins
• Follow the instructions in the plugin itself.

After you’ve successfully installed and enabled the plugin, go to Settings > Google Tag Manager, enter your Google Tag Manager container ID and set up other options. The reason why I like this plugin is that it also gives me additional options and data that can be easily available for web tracking, e.g. Post author, Post Category, Post Tags, etc.

10. WHAT IF MY CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM DOES NOT ALLOW TO PLACE CODES IN <HEAD>?

Don’t worry, this is not the end of the world. Actually, GTM <script> code can be placed anywhere on the website. The higher you put it in the website’s source code, the sooner it will load, therefore your web tracking will be more precise. But if your CMS allows placing all codes only at in the <body> tag, that is still fine.

The most important thing is that you must not place the <noscript> code in the <head> of a website. All other variations are allowed (e.g. both codes can be placed right after the opening <body> tag or both codes before the closing </body> tag).

11. CAN GOOGLE TAG MANAGER BE INSTALLED ONLY ON WEBSITES?

No, GTM also supports Android, iOS mobile apps, and AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages).

12. CAN I USE THE SAME GTM CONTAINER ON MULTIPLE WEBSITES?

Yes, you can and there is nothing wrong with that. You’ll just have to be more careful with setting up triggers because sometimes you might want to fire a particular tag only on a website A but not on the website B.

13. HOW CAN I TEST IF GOOGLE TAG MANAGER IS WORKING?

There are several ways how to do that:

• In GTM, enable Preview and Debug mode, after that, go to the website and refresh it. If the Preview and Debug console appeared, that’s a good sign.
• Use Google Tag Assistant.
  • After you install the extension, click the Tag Assistant icon in your browser.
  • Enable the Tag Assistant and refresh your browser.
  • Look at the status of the Google Tag Manager container. If you get yellow or red, there are problems with your installation. Click the icon to further reveal what the problem is.
  • Read this guide for more tips how to properly use Google Tag Assistant.

14. DO I NEED DEVELOPERS AFTER I START USING GOOGLE TAG MANAGER?

It depends on what are your goals. Even though a lot of new opportunities open to digital marketers after they start using GTM, sometimes developer’s help is still necessary.

Such interactions as video player actions, scroll tracking, element’s appearance on the screen, etc. will be pretty easy for you to track (as you get more experienced with GTM). But if you need some server-side data (which is not accessible by Google Tag Manager), for example, user ID, user’s plan, you’ll need to cooperate with the developer.

How does that work? If you need any additional data, ask a developer to pass it to the Data Layer with help of dataLayer.push (it is described in this Google Tag Manager FAQ too, so continue reading). From there, you will be able to fetch it.

Also, usually, developer’s input is needed to implement Google Analytics Standard or Enhanced Ecommerce tracking.

Additionally, if you found some custom JavaScript code online, it is a good practice to show it to a developer before deployment. Chances are that a professional coder will notice something harmful that might break the website or cause some other troubles.

15. WILL GTM MAKE ME INDEPENDENT FROM IT/DEVELOPERS?

Again, it depends on what are your goals. If you plan just to track regular Google Analytics pageviews, clicks, scroll tracking and other basic interactions, you’ll be fine without developer’s input.

The more advanced your measurement plan is, the more likely you’ll need to cooperate with developers.

One thing to remember: developers are not your enemies. Be in touch with them, and, if needed, ask them to push some valuable data to the Data Layer (it is also explained in this blog post). Looking for ideas what kind of data that could be?

• User ID
• User pricing plan
• User’s total spend
• User’s satisfaction (NPS) score, etc.

16. WHAT IS A TAG?

A tag is a piece of code that usually sends information to a third party, such as Google Analytics. Tags are often provided by analytics, marketing, and support providers to help you integrate their products into your website or mobile app.

With Google Tag Manager, developers no longer need to maintain each of these JavaScript snippets in website’s source code. Instead, you specify the tags that you want to fire, and when you want them to fire, from within the Google Tag Manager user interface.

Here are several examples of a tag:

• Google Analytics pageview tag
• Google Adwords conversion tag
• Facebook Pixel tracking code
• Linkedin Insight Tag

Also, a tag can be a code snippet which does some particular function on your website, for example, a code of an email popup tool, a code which changes browser’s color, etc.

17. WHAT IS A TAG TEMPLATE?

Google Tag Manager features a powerful tag template system to help simplify publishing of tracking codes and eliminate errors. Instead of writing your own code, you can use tag templates in Google Tag Manager which offer a bunch of predefined fields with settings. This approach is much more user-friendly.

Several examples: Universal Analytics Tag Template, Google Optimize, CrazyEgg, etc.

If you cannot find a tag template, do not worry, use Custom HTML tag instead.

18. WHAT IS A TRIGGER?

A trigger is a condition that evaluates whether the tag should fire or not. All tag firing in Google Tag Manager is event-driven. Anytime an event is registered by Tag Manager, triggers from the container are evaluated and tags are fired accordingly. No tag can be fired unless an event occurs.

An event can be a page view, a click on a button, a form submission, any custom event that you define, etc. As of March 2018, Tag Manager has 10 built-in event types plus a custom event option:

• Page view
• Click
• Form submission
• Element visibility
• Scrolling
• Video
• Javascript error
• History change
• Timer
• Custom event (which is created with dataLayer.push)

19. “ALL PAGES” TRIGGER IS NOT WORKING. WHY?

This usually happens if a developer (or you) placed the Data Layer code snippet below the Google Tag Manager container code. 

20. WHAT IS A VARIABLE?

Technically speaking, variables are name-value pairs for which the value is populated during runtime. For example, the predefined variable named URL has been defined such that its value is the current page URL.

Simply put, a variable is usually a piece of information which can be used in a tag, a trigger, and even in other variables.

In tags, variables are used to capture dynamic values (e.g. passing the transaction value and products purchased to a conversion tracking tag).

In triggers, they are used to define filters that specify when a particular trigger should be executed (e.g. to execute a pageview trigger when the Page URL contains example.com/index.html).

21. WHERE CAN I INSERT VARIABLES?

GTM developers have made it clear to understand where variables can or cannot be used in their interface (so you don’t have to guess). If there’s a button with a LEGO brick next to it, then you’re covered! Go ahead and insert variables.

By the way, you’re not limited to inserting just one variable. If you need, go ahead and add two or five! Whatever makes sense to you! Also, here are a couple of examples where variables won’t work:

1. Tag Firing Priority (in tag’s Advanced Settings section)

2. Trigger conditions. You cannot create a condition where one variable (chosen in the first drop-down list) equals (or contains, etc.) to another variable.

22. WHAT IS DATA LAYER?

Technically speaking, a data layer is a JavaScript object or variable that stores and sends information from your site to Google Tag Manager (later that data is transferred to other tools, like Google Analytics). In plain English – it’s like a virtual layer of your website which contains various data points which can be used for tracking purposes (Get it? That’s why it’s called the Data Layer).

Who or what should put data into the Data Layer? It can be a developer (if you need some information about the user/visitor from the database), a plugin (for example, GTM4WP), and even you (with help of Google Tag Manager).

Every important piece of information (or event) needs to be passed to the Data Layer and from there, Google Tag Manager can fetch it and send to some 3rd party tool, like Google Analytics or Adwords.

23. HOW DO I SET UP DATA LAYER AFTER GTM IS INSTALLED?

If initially, you don’t have any data to store in the data layer, then you don’t have to do anything. When Google Tag Manager container snippet is loaded, it creates a Data Layer by itself. From this moment, various data points can be passed to it which can be later used in GTM.

However, if you want to have some custom data in the Data Layer as soon as the page starts loading, then you need to place the following code above GTM container snippet:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; window.dataLayer.push({ 'user_pricing_plan': 'Premium', // change this 'user_id': '54djs02ns29sb20s92b230ds'  // change this });   <!-- Google Tag Manager -->   ...   <!-- End Google Tag Manager -->

“user_pricing_plan” and “user_id” are just examples, replace them with some meaningful data for you or your client.

Placing that above the GTM container will make the data available with “All Pages” trigger.

24. WHAT IS DATALAYER.PUSH?

dataLayer.push is a method which allows to put some metadata/events to the Data Layer which can be later accessed with Data Layer Variables. The code snippet (mentioned in the question #23) also contained the dataLayer.push(window.dataLayer.push, to be precise).

Example: You have a newsletter signup form (which cannot be easily tracked with a GTM’s default form listener). You should ask your website developer to fire a Data Layer event once a new subscriber has successfully entered his/her email on your website:

1	window.dataLayer.push({'event': 'new_subscriber'});

If you wish you can ask your developer for additional information (e.g. form location (because you might have more than one form on the same page)).

1 2 3 4 5

window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; window.dataLayer.push({ 'event': 'new_subscriber', 'formLocation': 'footer', });

25. WHY THERE ARE TWO DATA LAYER VERSIONS?

You’re probably talking about Data Layer Variable’s settings.

When you select the Version, you’re instructing GTM to treat the values in the data model in two different ways. In 95% of cases (or even more), you’ll need to use the default version 2.

26. WHAT IS AN AUTO-EVENT LISTENER?

Auto-event listeners are these super useful JavaScript functions which track particular interactions on a web page. In case something noteworthy occurs, they fire Data Layer events which can be later used as triggers in GTM. Furthermore, those events contain valuable data which can be transferred to other tools, like Google Analytics, Adwords, Mixpanel, you name it.

There is a bunch of default GTM auto-event listeners (like Form submission, Timer, Pageview, etc.) and a lot more custom auto-event listeners available online (like Youtube, Scroll Tracking, Form abandonment, all available at the Library of GTM Recipes).

27. DATA LAYER RESETS AFTER I REFRESH A PAGE. WHAT ARE THE POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS TO KEEP THE DATA?

This is an expected behavior. Every time a page is refreshed, everything that was stored in the Data Layer is wiped out. You can try it by yourself by enabling a Preview and Debug mode and then reloading the page.

No matter what events were captured by the Preview and Debug console, they are long gone now and everything starts from the beginning, with Pageview, DOM ready, and Window Loaded events.

So how can you fire tags to returning visitors or those who have viewed at least 3 pages? You can either set & read cookies or use Web Storage API.

28. WHAT INTERACTIONS CAN I TRACK WITH GOOGLE TAG MANAGER?

Actually, there are plenty of them. As for GTM’s default functionality, you can track (now it’s 2018 March but I’m pretty sure that in the future this list will grow):

• Link and element (e.g. image) clicks
• Page Loads
• When a particular element appears on the screen
• Form submissions (honestly, this default functionality sucks as the majority of forms are not properly supported. Try this guide, instead)
• Scroll depth
• Youtube video player
• Time (how long a visitor stayed on a page, not website)
• Unhandled JavaScript errors
• History change (useful for Single Page Website Tracking)

The list of custom events is even more impressive. To name a few:

• Soundcloud, Mixcloud players
• Vimeo, JW Player, Wistia, and other video players.
• When a visitor tries to leave the website
• Facebook comments
• Chats like Zopim or Tawk.to

29. WHAT SHOULD I DO IF THE DEFAULT GTM EVENT TRACKING FUNCTIONALITY DOES NOT TRACK THE INTERACTION I’M INTERESTED IN?

It is a pretty common issue that the built-in GTM functionality does not track a particular interaction. In that case, you should:

• Use Google search to find a ready-made solution. GTM is getting more and more popular so there’s a high chance that someone has already solved your issue. A good example is a list of 30+ GTM recipes.
• If possible, ask a developer to send the event to the Data Layer (with help of window.dataLayer.push). After the event is populated, create a Custom Trigger.
• You could try writing your own auto-event listener (that is possible even if you’re not a developer).

30. CAN I TRACK EVENTS IN THE IFRAME?

Yes, if you have access to the code within the iFrame. Otherwise, you’re out of luck. It’s impossible to track the iFrame without having access to it.

31. I AM CLICKING VARIOUS WEBSITE ELEMENTS BUT GTM PREVIEW CONSOLE DOES NOT SHOW ANYTHING. WHY?

This is a common rookie mistake. Enabling built-in click variables is not enough to start tracking something.

Say, that you want to track link clicks. Although enabling Click variables is a good start, you should also have at least one link click trigger active too. After there is at least one link click trigger, a click auto-event listener is activated meaning that it started listening to all clicks of <a> html elements, whether it’s a hyperlink (http://) or a “tel:”, or “mailto:” link.

So if you started working with a brand new GTM container, a good practice would be to create a generic “All link clicks” trigger, just to see how link click tracking works

32. DO I HAVE TO MIGRATE ALL HARDCODED TAGS TO GTM?

In case you didn’t know, a hardcoded tag is a code snippet added directly to website’s source code, without a tag management system.

So if you had been using a hardcoded Google Analytics tracking codes and are now considering to start using Google Tag Manager, you are not obliged to migrate all GA codes, but it is highly recommended to do so.

33. HOW IS GOOGLE TAG MANAGER DIFFERENT FROM GOOGLE ANALYTICS?

Google Tag Manager is a free software from Google that allows you to deploy various types of code (tags) to your website. A good example of a tag would be Google Analytics tracking code, Google Analytics event codes, Adwords conversion script and remarketing tags. There are many more types of code that can be added to your website using GTM, including custom codes.

Google Tag Manager does not replace Google Analytics. Instead, it helps users to easily add Google Analytics tracking codes (tags) to a website, deploy GA event code snippets and define rules, when each GA code must fire.

Prior to GTM, GA tracking codes had to be hard-coded, usually by a web developer on each individual page. Having hundreds of events is very difficult when it comes to maintaining/updating them. But Google Tag Manager solves this problem because all your tags are stored in one place – your GTM account.

Google Analytics is not the only tag compatible with Google Tag Manager. Other examples include:

• Google Adwords Conversion Tag.
• Google Adwords Remarketing Tag.
• Facebook Pixel code.
• Crazyegg tracking code.
• Inspectlet tracking code.
• Any other custom HTML/Javascript code.

34. DO I HAVE TO USE GOOGLE TAG MANAGER IF I JUST WANT TO IMPLEMENT SOME BASIC GA TRACKING?

No, you don’t have to. You are free to implement Google Analytics the old way, by adding code snippets directly to website’s source code. However, keep in mind that you are losing a lot of opportunities by skipping Google Tag Manager.

35. CAN I USE THE SAME GA TRACKING ID IN MULTIPLE GTM CONTAINERS?

Yes, you can. This is pretty common for digital marketers because you or your client might have several different websites which are pretty different regarding their structure, CSS/HTML, etc.

So it might make sense to create several GTM containers with their own set of triggers, variables, etc. and to create Google Analytics tags with the same tracking ID. This means that all this data from different Google Tag Manager containers will be sent to the same Google Analytics property.

After all, you can create different GA views in order to analyze each website separately.

36. HOW DOES THE GTM AND GA WORK WHEN IT COMES TO E-COMMERCE TRACKING?

In a nutshell, first, you need to have e-commerce data pushed to the data layer (usually, this is done by the developer or a particular plugin if your content management system is popular).

Then you need to create a tag (or tags) which will transfer that data from the Data Layer to Google Analytics.

Standard and Enhanced E-commerce need to be configured in different ways. As for Standard, you need to use Transaction type GA Tag.

Things are different with Enhanced Ecommerce, where Pageview and Event tags will be your ways of data transportation.

Remember:

• First, you need to have e-commerce data in the Data layer.
• Then you pass it with Google Analytics Tags to GA servers.

Important: Google Analytics (and Google Tag Manager) documentation provides various examples of code snippets how the data needs to be pushed to the Data Layer. You must follow that data structure precisely.

Useful resources:

• Standard Ecommerce + GTM
• Enhanced Ecommerce + GTM 

 

37. HOW CAN I LEARN MORE ABOUT GOOGLE TAG MANAGER?

It depends on your level of GTM knowledge. For beginners, I’d recommend:

• Interactive GTM Fundamentals course by Google
• Reading and following various GTM resources/blogs, just like this one (#shameless_plug).

38. WHERE CAN I GET HELP REGARDING GOOGLE TAG MANAGER?

• Google Tag Manager Community on Facebook
• Google Tag Manager Community on Google+
• Google Tag Manager Forums
• Stack Overflow

39. HOW CAN I BECOME A GTM EXPERT?

You have to work hard and never stop learning (#captain_obvious). These are the topics you should be comfortable with in order to become GTM pro:

• All the basic stuff, like Pageview, Click, Video player, scrolling, and other tracking.
• Be familiar with what DOM is, how to read it and, preferably, how to manipulate. To be honest, I’m still learning the latter part.
• Know what CSS selectors are and how you can use them in GTM.
• Learn how to set, read cookies, delete.
• Regular expressions.
• JavaScript. I’m just taking my first steps here but I already find it very useful.
• Google Analytics Standard and Enhanced E-commerce, cross-domain tracking, iframes.
• Fully understand how the Data Layer works and how can it be manipulated.
• hitCallback, onHTMLsuccess, etc. And a new addition – customTask (this one is still on my TO DO list).
• This list is not final but it should help you get the picture.

40. HOW TO TEST WITH GOOGLE TAG MANAGER?

Google Tag Manager offers an awesome feature and without it, I could not imagine my work, Preview and Debug mode.

Google Tag Manager Preview and Debug (P&D) mode allows you to browse a site on which your GTM container code is implemented. Sites with preview mode enabled will display a debugger pane (a.k.a. console) at the bottom of your browser screen so that you can inspect which tags fired and in what order.

To enable Google Tag Manager Debug mode, click Preview button in the top right corner of your GTM interface (near Submit button).

After you enable P&D mode, a large orange notification banner will appear.

Now, navigate to the site where the Google Tag Manager container code is implemented, refresh the page and a debug console window will appear at the bottom of your browser, showing detailed information about your tags, including their firing status and what data is being processed.

Read the detailed guide about the Preview and Debug mode in order to open its full potential.

In addition to the P&D mode, you should also try useful Chrome extensions like Google Tag Assistant, DataLayer Inspector, and others.

41. HOW DOES THE PREVIEW AND DEBUG MODE WORK?

When you enable Preview and Debug mode, GTM stores a cookie in your browser. This cookie lets Google Tag Manager container snippet (which is installed on the website) recognize that you are the owner/user of the container and you wish to use debugging features.

That is why only you see the Preview and Debug mode while website visitors continue browsing your site without any interruptions. Also, you can share the link to Preview and Debug mode. After the recipient clicks the link, he/she also gets the cookie and starts seeing the Preview console.

Since the cookie is 3rd party, there’s a chance that aggressive ad blockers or other extensions (like Ghostery) which block trackers might prevent you from enabling GTM Preview and Debug mode. So if you wish to continue using GTM, you should add it as an exception in those extensions.

42. MY PREVIEW AND DEBUG MODE IS NOT WORKING. WHY?

There are plenty of possible reasons why this happens. The most common ones are:

• You have enabled P&D in the wrong GTM container
• GTM account is viewed via regular browser mode and the website you’re testing is in the incognito window
• Sometimes you need to do a hard browser refresh
• Too strict browser extensions, like AdBlocker, Ghostery, etc.

43. WHAT IS A TAG MANAGER INJECTOR?

Tag Manager Injector is a chrome extension which helps you to preview a GTM container on your site (or your client’s) without needing to add any JavaScript to your pages. It means you have much more time to test your GTM configuration in advance and you do not have to wait for a developer to add the code.

You can download the extension here. Also, DataLayer Inspector has the same functionality. Read the full guide how to use Tag Manager Injector.

44. GOOGLE TAG ASSISTANT

Another useful extension which helps you be faster and more efficient is Google Tag Assistant. It is a Chrome Extension that helps you validate the tracking code on your website and troubleshoot common problems and makes the entire process much easier and faster. Read the full guide how to use it.

45. CAN ADBLOCKERS OR OTHER BROWSER EXTENSIONS BLOCK GOOGLE TAG MANAGER?

Yes, they can. But this is not very common. Keep in mind that if an extension blocks GTM, it would have probably blocked hardcoded Google Analytics as well.

46. CAN GOOGLE TAG MANAGER WORK WITHOUT JAVASCRIPT?

Some visitors (although there aren’t many of them) browse with JavaScript disabled. Since GTM heavily relies on JavaScript, the majority of features will not work without it. However, you should keep in mind that one Tag would still function, Custom Image Tag.

This tag loads an image pixel which contains additional parameters. Those parameters help you send the data to 3rd party tools.

The list of possible triggers (which do not need JS) is narrowed to just Pageview. And the list of variables is also affected in a major way. As an example, here’s how you can track visitors with Facebook Pixel when JS is disabled.

47. CAN I BREAK A WEBSITE WITH GTM?

Yes, you can. With great power comes great responsibility. Using poorly tested or unknown/suspicious scripts found online can break some functionality on your website. A rule of thumb would be to consult with developers before deploying custom JavaScript.

On the other hand, it’s much harder to break something with built-in triggers and variables. Actually, I cannot think of a situation where this might happen (but that does not mean it’s impossible).

48. DOES GOOGLE TAG MANAGER STORE ANY DATA ABOUT VISITORS? #GDPR

Google Tag Manager does not store any data about the visitor, it’s just a system which helps you transport the data to 3rd party tools. That transportation occurs only client-side, on his/her browser.

The only way that I can think of (regarding data storage) is that you might intentionally create Regex or Lookup tables where you map user IDs with actual user data.

That way you would be storing sensitive personally identifiable information in GTM which is against Google’s terms of use. So if you’re doing that, with or without GDPR, you’re in trouble.

49. WHAT ARE THE MOST COMMON MISTAKES WHILE WORKING WITH GOOGLE TAG MANAGER?

There is a bunch of them but I’ll mention the ones I face most often:

• Not using debugging tools like Tag Assistant or Data Layer Inspector. Also, poor testing.
• Placing dataLayer = [] after the GTM container snippet
• Using too many auto-event listeners. This usually ends up with too much data which gives no real value.
• Not using a proper naming convention. As a result, you’ll end up having a big mess.
• Tracking form submissions with click triggers.

The full list of Common Google Tag Manager mistakes can be found here.

50. WHAT IS A GOOGLE TAG MANAGER RECIPE?

I’m not sure about the origin of this term but I give the attribution to Lunametrics. GTM recipe is a read-made Tag Manager container template which can be easily imported into your GTM container.

As a result, it automatically creates a set of tags, triggers, and variables which are already configured. All you need to do is enter your tracking IDs or other settings (depends on a recipe and its instructions) and you’re good to go.

I’ve collected a large library of free GTM Recipes which is at your service.

51. WHAT OTHER COOL STUFF CAN I DO WITH GOOGLE TAG MANAGER?

I’ve published a list of 60+ Custom JavaScripts for GTM which will help you better understand what are the possibilities.

52. HOW TO REMOVE GOOGLE TAG MANAGER?

Honestly, I did not plan to post this question, but apparently, people are looking for answers to it. In order to remove GTM from your website, you (or a developer) needs to remove the Google Tag Manager container code from all pages.

If it was added via a plugin, then remove it.  Easy as that.

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