Up Your Website Tracking Game With Google Tag Manager

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There’s far more to tracking than just reporting on website visitors and page views. Here are three things you can set up using Google Tag Manager and up your game when it comes to tracking your website performance.

What is Google Tag Manager?

Google Tag Manager (GTM) allows you to implement and manage all of your website tags in one place. This is useful because it means that you only need to add one snippet of code to your website; once implemented, any codes that are within GTM will automatically be added to your site.

As companies grow and expand their marketing efforts, so too do the number of codes that need to be added to the website. From social platforms such as the Facebook Pixel to CRM software like HubSpot, there are many different codes. Not only can this become messy and confusing, it can also hinder a website’s performance. Using Google Tag Manager therefore saves time and effort whenever you want to add a new code to your website, as well as keeping some structure.

 

Google Tag Manager

“Tags Made Easy” – Google Tag Manager

While this statement isn’t wrong, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that just anyone can use it. You don’t need to be a coder or a web developer, but you do need to have an understanding of the basics. Ideally, you need to understand the concept of adding and removing tags on your website; as well as the impact that this can have on your website. You’ll also need to understand the fundamentals of using GTM, but there are a ton of ‘how to’ videos on YouTube.

Once you’ve got the basics covered, you’re good to go.

3 Actions You Can Track With Google Tag Manager

Of course, you can *just* use GTM to add all your tags and be done with it, but there’s so much more you can use it for, to really understand your audience and website visitor behaviour.

These tips aren’t necessarily mind-blowing, they’re certainly not new, but they are often overlooked or forgotten about when analysing website visitor behaviour. They can give far more insight into your website performance, allowing you to interpret the data and make informed data-driven decisions.

Scroll Depth

Scroll depth tracking allows you to literally see how far someone scrolls on your page. Perhaps you’re testing landing pages and want to see if anyone scrolls below the fold or you’ve written a long blog article and want to see how engaged users are. Even if users just visit one page before exiting your site, you’ll be able to see how far they scrolled.

In GTM, you can set up a scroll depth trigger to fire tags based on how far someone scrolls on your page – either horizontally or vertically. They can be set as either percentages or as pixels depending on your preference.

Video Views

Just like long-form content, it’s useful to know how engaged someone is with your content. Not only can you track when someone starts watching your video, but you can also track how many people view the complete video, as well as where drop-offs occur.

Use this insight to understand how users engage with your content. If video completions are low, maybe you could experiment with making shorter videos. If drop-offs occur at a similar time, have viewers already got the information they were looking for and don’t need to watch any further?

Button Clicks

Tracking when someone clicks on a button isn’t the most innovative method of tracking, and you’re possibly already tracking this. But are you using them in the cleverest way possible? I’m not suggesting that you track every single button click across your whole website, but think about the most valuable clicks to you.

Some examples might include:

  • A button to a third party website

    Maybe you link to a reseller of a product, or perhaps you put a link to a brand partner that could go on to result in a purchase. Tracking the number of users that click away from your site to these other websites could give some useful insight as to how these purchases may be influenced.

  • Form Submissions/Subscriptions

    The number of people that click on a button to subscribe or click to a form may differ drastically to those that actually subscribe or complete the form. Use this insight to understand what changes you may need to make, to encourage more subscriptions and submissions.

  • Social Profiles

    You most likely include links to your social profiles on your website and you may know how many users visit your site from your profiles – but do you know how many users are clicking away from your website to your social profiles?

  • A/B testing

    While split testing your social campaigns is vital, don’t forget about testing features on your website. You could have two different buttons that lead through to the same page; test which one drives more clicks.

There are limitless possibilities with Google Tag Manager, with so many ways to get more insightful data from your website and the people that are visiting it. Using Google Tag Manager can allow you to make informed decisions, with the data to back it up.

For more information on how Google Tag Manager can positively impact your marketing efforts, contact the team today.

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