Lesson 1: Course Introduction

Lesson 2: Start with a measurement plan

Lesson 3: Develop a tag implementation strategy

Lesson 1: Course Introduction

With Tag Manager, you no longer have to add tags manually to a website. Instead, you can use Tag Manager to create Analytics, Google Ads, or any third-party tags, and specify when they should fire. This simplifies and speeds up the process of tag deployment, and can really streamline tag loading for faster website performance. It can also help you manage different versions of your tags, making you less reliant on developers for changes.

Course Overview

Summary: This course will walk you through the basics of Tag Manager including developing a measurement plan and a tag management strategy. We’ll discuss how to deploy tags and triggers, and show you how to set up variables that can be reused across your site.

Data Layer: We’ll also discuss how you can use the Data Layer, along with variables and events, to pass information from your website into other tools for marketing and analysis.

Tag Manager: Finally, we’ll use Tag Manager to set up advertising and remarketing tags. While the course examples will focus on Tag Manager for desktop, the same principles can apply for mobile apps, as well.

Example: We’ll use tagging examples from The Great Outdoors - the world’s leading fictitious retailer of outdoor camping and hiking equipment, sporting goods, and clothing. In addition to their online and retail stores, The Great Outdoors recently launched a new travel website called “The Great Outdoors Travel Adventures.”

This is a site where customers can research and plan travel, as well as book airline tickets and hotel accommodations. The Great Outdoors will need your help using Google Tag Manager to add tags to their Travel Adventures website, and collect data to better understand customer behavior.

Lesson 2: Start with a measurement plan

Lesson Overview:

When implementing Google Tag Manager, you’ll want to begin with a solid measurement plan for your business. Let’s look at The Great Outdoor's measurement plan which includes their business objective and tactics, as well as which metrics and dimensions will be used for measurement and analysis.

Click on the here of the measurement plan below to reveal more insight into the tactics, key performance indicators, and segments we'll use

The Google Merchandise Store measurement plan

Business Objective: Sell merchandise that promotes the Google brand:

You can think of the Google Merchandise Store as an average, medium-sized e-commerce business. At the top of their measurement plan is the main objective of the store, which is to sell branded merchandise that promotes Google. To accomplish their objective, the Google Merchandise Store has a strategy to create an advertising plan that makes it easier for customers to purchase Google-branded merchandise.

Strategy: Create an online advertising campaign that directs customers to the Store website to purchase Google-branded merchandise:

Tactic 1: Increase Android branded merchandise referrals To measure the success of their ad campaign, the Store will use different tactics. Since Android is making a big branding push, one tactic is to increase referral traffic to Android-branded merchandise pages.

Key Performance Indicators (Metrics) Tactics are measured by key performance indicators (or KPIs). KPIs are the metrics the Store will use in Google Analytics to measure their success.

KPI: Increase Android-brand merchandise referrals​ The Google Store will want to measure increases in referral traffic to their website to understand whether they're increasing customer awareness of Android-brand merchandise.

KPI: Increase new users to Android-brand merchandise pages​ The Google Store will want to measure increases in new users to their website to understand whether they're increasing customer awareness of Android-brand merchandise.

KPI: Increase Android-brand merchandise pageviews​ The Google Store will want to measure increases in pageviews to Android-brand merchandise pages to understand whether they're increasing customer awareness.

Tactic 2: Increase revenue of Android-branded merchandise

The Google Merchandise Store will also want to measure the success of their ad campaign based on sales of Android-branded products. So they have another tactic to increase revenue from Android-branded merchandise.

Key Performance Indicators (Metrics) Tactics are measured by key performance indicators (or KPIs). KPIs are the metrics the Store will use in Google Analytics to measure their success.

KPI: Increase conversion rate​ The Google Store will want to measure increases in conversion rates on their website to understand whether they're generating more revenue from Android-brand merchandise.

KPI: Increase total transactions​ The Google Store will want to measure increases in total Android-brand transactions on their website to understand whether they generate more revenue from Android-brand merchandise.

KPI: Increase total merchandise revenue The Google Store will want to measure increases in total Android-brand merchandise revenue on their website, since that reflects the tactic of increasing revenue.

Help CenterCommunity Analytics Fix issue The Google Merchandise Store measurement plan Business Objective: Sell merchandise that promotes the Google brand You can think of the Google Merchandise Store as an average, medium-sized e-commerce business. At the top of their measurement plan is the main objective of the store, which is to sell branded merchandise that promotes Google.

Strategy: Create an online advertising campaign that directs customers to the Store website to purchase Google-branded merchandise To accomplish their objective, the Google Merchandise Store has a strategy to create an advertising plan that makes it easier for customers to purchase Google-branded merchandise.

Tactic: Increase Android- branded merchandise referrals To measure the success of their ad campaign, the Store will use different tactics. Since Android is making a big branding push, one tactic is to increase referral traffic to Android-branded merchandise pages.

Key Performance Indicators (Metrics) Tactics are measured by key performance indicators (or KPIs). KPIs are the metrics the Store will use in Google Analytics to measure their success.

KPI: Increase Android-brand merchandise referrals​ The Google Store will want to measure increases in referral traffic to their website to understand whether they're increasing customer awareness of Android-brand merchandise.

KPI: Increase new users to Android-brand merchandise pages​ The Google Store will want to measure increases in new users to their website to understand whether they're increasing customer awareness of Android-brand merchandise.

KPI: Increase Android-brand merchandise pageviews​ The Google Store will want to measure increases in pageviews to Android-brand merchandise pages to understand whether they're increasing customer awareness.

Tactic: Increase revenue of Android-branded merchandise The Google Merchandise Store will also want to measure the success of their ad campaign based on sales of Android-branded products. So they have another tactic to increase revenue from Android-branded merchandise.

Key Performance Indicators (Metrics) Tactics are measured by key performance indicators (or KPIs). KPIs are the metrics the Store will use in Google Analytics to measure their success.

KPI: Increase conversion rate​ The Google Store will want to measure increases in conversion rates on their website to understand whether they're generating more revenue from Android-brand merchandise.

KPI: Increase total transactions​ The Google Store will want to measure increases in total Android-brand transactions on their website to understand whether they generate more revenue from Android-brand merchandise.

KPI: Increase total merchandise revenue The Google Store will want to measure increases in total Android-brand merchandise revenue on their website, since that reflects the tactic of increasing revenue.

Segments (Dimensions)

You can view your KPIs using different segments to see insights about your business, such as what traffic sources are driving referrals or driving conversion rates on your website. To analyze their KPIs, the Google Merchandise Store will use segments for Customer Demographics, Traffic Sources, Device Type, and User Category.

Segment: Customer Demographics Customer Demographics can help the Google Merchandise Store understand who is visiting Android-brand merchandise pages and purchasing items.

Segment: Traffic Sources Traffic Sources can help the Store understand where users are coming from. Segment: Device Type Device Type can help the Store optimize their site for different devices.

Segment: User Category User Category tells the Google Merchandise Store how much of their traffic and purchases were from Google employees compared to external customers.

Lesson 3: Develop a tag implementation strategy

When developing a tag implementation strategy, we recommend the following steps:

MIGRATE TAGS: First, decide which of your existing site tags you can more effectively manage in Tag Manager. If possible, we recommend migrating all of your tags in order to manage everything in one place and avoid extra code changes to your website.

DECIDE ON VALUES: Next, decide what static and dynamic values you’ll want to pass from your website. This could be user data, revenue, booking data, or any other custom information you’ll need to understand user behavior. It’s helpful to think of these in terms of “events” (or user actions) that you want to be able to capture using Tag Manager.

ALIGN TO GOALS: Finally, figure out which tags can supply you with the data you need based on the metrics and dimensions in your measurement plan. Your data requirements should map back to your overall business goals, so you know you’re analysing the appropriate data.