2. Introduction to Google Tag Manager
Steve Wieda
February 26, 2016
Yale University Library

3. What is Google Tag Manager?
According to Google:
“Google Tag Manager is a tag management system that allows you to quickly and easily update tags.”

4. The End.

5. Google Tag Manager
Google Tag Manager allows you to add tags to your web pages through a GUI
Tags are snippets of HTML, usually including JavaScript, that allow you to extend the functionality of web pages
These tags can be added without coding experience
Tag Manager is particularly useful for inserting HTML and JavaScript into web applications for which you do not have access to the code

6. Tag Manager and Google Analytics
Built-in Tag functionality is amazingly diverse and spans from inserting advertisements to tracking mouse movement to creating heat maps.
Tags can be custom coded for novel purposes, e.g. tracking scrolling on a web page
We’ll look at Google Tag Manager and how it relates to Google Analytics, specifically in how to generate Events in Google Analytics using Tag Manager

7. Triggering Events: The traditional way
Custom JavaScript has to be embedded in the page
Custom JavaScript calls ga() to manually trigger an Event
The Event Category, Action, and Label are all hard-coded in the page
Changes require having a developer modify the JavaScript
Changes have to be put into production to fully test

8. Triggering Events: Google Tag Manager
Tags are inserted into the page via a GUI
Google Tag Manager takes care of triggering the Event send
The Event Category, Action, and Label are easily set in the GUI
Changes do not require having a developer modify the code
Tags can be tested immediately in your browser prior to deployment

9. Terminology: Tags and Triggers
A Tag is a piece of HTML and JavaScript that performs some function in your web page
A Trigger is a condition that causes the Tag to perform its action
You could have a Tag that sends an Event to Google Analytics
You could say that “Anyone Clicking This <div>” is the Trigger to fire the Tag that sends an Event to Google Analytics.

10. Step One: Determine what you want to track
The first thing you need to do is to define what you want to track
Generally speaking, you want to track actions, such as clicking a button, submitting a form, or scrolling down on a page
For this demo, we’ve decided to track how many times someone expands the “Libraries & Collections” navigation element on the Library’s website by sending an Event every time someone clicks on that nav element

11. Step Two: Define the Trigger
Think of what needs to happen in order to send an Event
If clicking “Libraries & Collections” is what should send the event, the click is the Trigger
Be prepared to describe the Trigger in a way Tag Manager can understand
In our case, anyone clicking on a <div> with the CSS class “libraries-block-nav” should kick off the Event

12. Step Three: Create the Tag
Create a “Google Analytics” Tag
Choose Universal Analytics as the type
Insert your GA Tracking ID
Define the Event you want to send (Category, Action, Label)
Choose the libraries-block-nav class click as the Trigger

13. Step Four: Test and publish
You can test your tag right in your browser
You can watch the Event get triggered in Google Analytics “Real-Time” area
If the Event comes in as expected, publish and go live!

14. Step Five: Profit!

15. Demo of Google Tag Manager