Finding Google Tag Manager a little hard?

I've worked with Google Tag Management System (also called GTM or Google's TMS) on several different client implementations and still admit to being a little confused by some of the more complex functionality. It seems that despite setting up a Google Tag Manager Fundamentals online training course and certification, it is still pretty hard to do anything beyond the basics.

Furthermore, with the recent introduction of GTM Version 2, things have been moved & renamed in the user interface.

Luckily Google seems to have appreciated this too and have got the people behind the product to star in a couple of short videos about it.





Hopefully these short resources will help.

Tag Management basics

Tag Management Systems (TMS’s and also known as Container Tags) are a way of simplifying the deployment and ongoing maintenance of JavaScript tags across a website. They are typically implemented in partnership with applications such as: digital analytics, personalisation and online marketing, although others can be integrated too.

The concept of a TMS is simple... in true Lord of the Rings style; you have “one tag to rule them all”. In other words you insert a single tag into your HTML and this then calls any number of other tags to the page (sometimes based on display rules, which fire certain tags in specific situations).

The business case for Tag Management is made by calculating the effort / cost required in the manual deployment of new tags (or updated incumbent ones), along with an increased speed of implementation and reduced amount of vendor lock-in. There are also potential benefits in having a single way to manage your tags and therefore keeping track of the potential numerous tags within your online estate, as well as performance improvements from the efficient delivery of only know JavaScript to your end user.