What is Google Tag Manager, and what is its value for an E-commerce

What is a tag and what are its functions?

Tags are codes (or scripts) that are added to a page on a website to help track visitor behavior data. In digital marketing, this is essential for making more strategic decisions. Tags can be used for various purposes, including:

• tracking how users arrive at your website;
• generating heatmaps;
• conducting research;
• creating an access base for remarketing;
• tracking events (such as link clicks, file downloads, and cart abandonments).

In the traditional tagging process, developers manually insert these codes whenever there is a need for site traffic analysis or monitoring. However, it’s important to note that this manual method has several drawbacks. Among the main ones are the time wasted by the IT team and delays in actions that the marketing team could take. To optimize routines, the Google Tag Manager was created.

What is Google Tag Manager?

Google Tag Manager is basically a free tool responsible for managing scripts. It is commonly used to insert these codes on websites in order to run marketing campaigns, research consumer behavior, analyze traffic, and more.

How does Google Tag Manager work?

After accessing the Google Tag Manager website, you need to log in using your Gmail account. Then, you’ll be directed to a setup page where you provide your company name and website. Google’s script manager also includes two very useful tools: triggers and variables. The first works like an activator — when a user performs a specific action on the site, the tag starts tracking to collect metrics for performance analysis. The second works together with triggers and can add monitoring forms and trigger conditions to the scripts.

What advantages does Google Tag Manager offer to an e-commerce?

It’s expected that GTM provides considerable benefits to those who use it in managing their online store. Check out the main advantages below.

Simplified code handling

One of the biggest advantages of using Google Tag Manager is the ability to manage codes more easily when needed. From this benefit, two other important ones emerge: no longer depending on someone who knows how to work with the source code, and eliminating the risk of changing an important part of the code and causing problems. However, for this to work, GTM must first be manually inserted into the website’s code. From there, customizations can be made without the need for programming knowledge.

Greater autonomy from development teams

Thanks to simpler code handling, Google Tag Manager allows managers and other professionals to implement tags without relying on developers. This makes it easier to add or modify tags quickly and independently. This is especially valuable when data needs to be tracked within very short timeframes — which could be missed if dependent on the dev team.

Speed and ease of tagging

Google Tag Manager brings many benefits to the tagging process since the tool handles the technical part — a task typically assigned to developers. It enables easier inclusion of tracking codes from Google Analytics, Google Ads, and Facebook Ads.

Diverse functionality

It also lets you take advantage of this tool’s features and others to improve results — as it helps monitor visitor behavior in your online store. Additionally, it can be used with A/B testing tools and data analysis.

Increased project security

GTM also offers security since you can assign just one person to be responsible for changes — which are stored and can be restored whenever an error or unwanted modification occurs. This works as a restore point that allows you to revert to a previous step.

Benefits for businesses of all sizes

Almost any business can benefit from using GTM. Since it allows you to tag and edit without needing a developer, it’s ideal for small and medium-sized businesses with limited technical support. On the other hand, larger companies often have many tags. In these cases, GTM makes it easy to manage dozens of them while optimizing performance and increasing site speed — which is crucial for fast loading and ensuring a positive user experience.