What is Google Tag Manager & How Does It Work?

What Is Google Tag Manager?

Google Tag Manager (GTM) is a free tool that enables you to install, store, and manage marketing tags without modifying website code.

Marketing tags are small snippets of code that track user actions and collect data.

The most common example of a marketing tag is the Google tag used to install Google Analytics and other Google products.

Other common examples include Google Analytics event codes, Google Ads conversion scripts, Meta Pixel code, and remarketing tags.

You need to place tags like these in your website code for Google Analytics and other platforms to function and collect data.

But with every addition and code change, you risk forgetting about, losing, or breaking tags (or other website elements).

GTM mitigates these issues by allowing you to install, manage, and deploy marketing tags from within its software instead of in your website code.

And the software injects code snippets and marketing tags into your website code only when necessary.

So you won’t accidentally break your website by testing something.

What Is Google Tag Manager Used For?

Tag Manager allows you to to track almost any kind of event or user behavior you can think of.

Here are some examples of commonly tracked events:

• Link clicks
• Button clicks
• Form submissions
• Conversions
• Shopping cart abandonment
• Adding items to cart
• Removing items from cart
• File downloads
• Scroll behavior
• Video views
• Call to action (CTA) performance
• Table of contents (TOC) clicks
• Custom events
...