One of the more common questions I get is how to use Google Tag Manager for click tracking. It is not that difficult to do, however, you need to understand how Google Tag Manager works in order to understand the logic of it.
This video tutorial shows you how to setup click tracking in Google Analytics.
Why should you track clicks in Google Tag Manager?
Let’s say you are running an ad campaign on Facebook and use their conversion pixel to track the number of purchases, downloads or signups to a newsletter.
Let’s say you want to be able to optimize your Facebook ads at the same time as you would like to track that someone has performed this action in your Google Analytics.
This is one of those moments when Google Tag Manager becomes extremely easy to use. Especially if you want to set it up so that this button, link or form sends information to both Google Analytics and Facebook at the same time.
You might use it to only send information to Facebook, Adwords, Google Analytics or anywhere else alone, but it is when you combine it that you start to understand the real power of the Google Tag manager Framework.
How does Google Tag Manager work?
In simple terms, Google Tag Manager does two things. It collects information using Triggers and it sends information using Tags. (I know that this is not the proper definition of what it does, but it is the definition that makes sense.)
Once you have installed Google tag manager on your website you can set up Triggers that your tag manager should listen to on the website. It can be anything from the scrolling of a page to a button click or a page view. Essentially anything that the user does on your page can be defined as a Trigger/something that Google Tag Manager should react to.
How it reacts is then decided by the Tags you have setup for that trigger.
If your trigger is set up to register when someone clicks a link and send that information to Google Analytics and Facebook, it will do so only if you have told it to do so in two separate tags. One trigger can therefore act as a trigger for several different tags to be “fired” as they say.
In the example above a user comes to a website which sets off a trigger for a PageView which sends a Tag to Google Analytics to register a PageView.
When a user clicks a link this trigger activates two Tags. One which sends information to Google Analytics and one which sends information to Facebook Ads Manager.
Why is it a good thing to use Google Tag Manager for Click tracking?
- Well, first and foremost because of website performance. The Google Tag Manager script only has to listen once and can then handle the information and send it where it needs to be sent in order to cover all of your measuring needs. If you aren’t using Google Tag Manager today you will most likely have to install every script separately on your website which means that each and every one of them have to load separately. This slows down the performance of your website/the speed at which your users gets the content.
- It helps you install scripts that IT doesn’t want you to install because of “security” issues.
- It allows you to manage all of your tags, tracking scripts and A/B-testing efforts in one place.