What is Google Tag Manager used for and how does it work?

Google Tag Manager is a specialized tool that Google created so advertisers could improve the efficiency of their pay-per-click (PPC) ads. The tool allows people to customize various aspects of their ads and track engagement across a wide range of different touchpoints in their PPC campaigns.

With Google Tag Manager, marketers can get a better sense of the customer journey, and how people engage their website, which paves the way for improved optimization and conversion rates.

Why Do We Need Google Tag Manager?

Today, setting up a PPC ad and running it without any consideration of your users is pointless. More often than not, it’ll be a waste of time and money.

Now, you need to consider various factors, such as:

• Number of engagements
• Type of engagement
• High-traffic landing pages
• High-performing landing pages that are driving more conversions
• Low-performing landing pages that aren’t generating many conversions

Before Google Tag Manager, you might be aware of a feature in Google Ads called conversion tracking. This enabled tracking of macro events, such as a sale on your online store. However, GTM helps to better manage and maintain the tags.

And so, Google introduced Google Tag Manager.

5 Best Use Cases of Google Tag Manager

So, what can you use Google Tag Manager for marketing or advertising? Here are five common applications.

1. Understanding User Behavior

Nowadays, knowing your customers is crucial. When you have a better understanding of user behavior, you’ll have a more in-depth knowledge of consumer habits, interests, and purchasing intent.

You can use Google Tag Manager to track click traffic on pages, which allows you to gauge interest. With insights on the most engaging pages and aspects of your site, you can make adjustments to enhance the user experience in other areas.

2. Tracking Micro-conversions

Micro-conversions are conversions for small events, like when a user downloads a whitepaper or eBook, or when they sign-up for your newsletter. Often, these are early steps in the customer journey as they consider your brand and its products or services.

By tracking micro-conversions, you build a picture of the complete customer journey on your website. This data and knowledge will help you refine your marketing funnel over time so that you can offer a smoother journey to more significant conversions.

3. Cart Abandonment Tracking

Abandoned carts are a scourge for online marketers, especially those running e-commerce stores.

Typically, consumers abandon carts because of one of the following reasons:

• Complex or confusing process for checkout
• Too much information is required, including too many personal details
• Too many steps leading to the checkout page

With Google Tag Manager, you can track the user’s journey up to the point of abandonment, and identify any sticking points that may deter people from completing their purchase.

You can then use the data insights to optimize your checkout process, which should reduce your bounce rate.

4. Remarketing Lists

Remarketing is a popular technique where marketers leverage data insights from a past user’s previous visit, and then retarget these users with content tailored to their needs and interests.

As such, tracking is an integral component of remarketing. We can use Google Tag Manager to track potential leads, and then segment these leads into lists based on factors like:

• Gender
• Age
• Location
• Sources
• Interests

By using segmentation, you can offer a higher level of personalization, which makes for a more effective remarketing strategy.  For example, you could create a group of prospects who all viewed the same black jacket on your online store, and then target them with an ad and special discount for that jacket.

To take things to the next level, Google Tag Manager makes it possible to use remarketing to target users who abandoned carts with personalized ads, encouraging them to return and complete their purchase.

5. Track Events in Third-Party Ad Platforms

Possibly the best use of Google Tag Manager is when you want to track a campaign in a third-party platform, instead of in Google Ads.

Imagine you have a list of customers for a Google Ads campaign, but you wish to set the targeting based on data gathered from another platform, like Facebook or Amazon.

By using Google Tag Manager, you can collect this data and use it in a separate campaign, which enables a high-level of targeting.

Let’s look at how to use Google Tag Manager to track Facebook Ads:

• Log in to your Google Tag Manager account.
• Select the website’s container and select “Add a new tag”.
• Select “Custom HTML tag” and enter a name for your tag.

• Select “Facebook Event Manager”.

• Select “Details” for your pixel in the “Events Manager” tab.
• Select “Set up” and then select “Manually install the code yourself”.
• Copy the entire pixel base code, as shown below

• Return to the Google Tag Manager Interface.
• Paste the above code in the HTML container in Google Tag Manager.
• Select the “Advanced settings” drop-down, and then select “Once per page” under “Tag firing options”.
• Under “Fire On”, select “All pages”.

That’s it! The process for setting up Google Tag Manager on Amazon Ads is similar to this process, so you should find it easy to set events tracking on any third-party platform with these instructions above.

Maximize Your Return

In advertising, you may set all sorts of goals for your campaigns, but in the end, it all boils down to your return on investment (ROI). The rise of data analysis in recent years has provided marketers and advertisers with the tools they need to maximize their ROI – so you should make good use of these tools!

Google Tag Manager makes tracking easy, so you can see where your traffic comes from and how users are engaging your website and ads. With a little practice, you can use this tracking tool – and its valuable insights on the customer journey – to improve your site and advertisements. Over time, this will enhance the user experience and your marketing efforts, so that you can increase your leads, conversions, and ROI.