Google Tag Manager - What to use it for?

[jscole86]

Most dealerships have quite a few 3rd party tags that need installed on our websites - analytics tracking, chat software, facebook tracking, adwords/ ppc tracking, crm tracking scripts, inventory plugins, etc. There are plenty more, you get the idea.

In the past, we had to send them to our website company, so that they could install them directly into the code. I'm sure it would clean up the coding, might speed up the site, and make it easier to manage if we installed these scripts/tags into GTM going forward. Is this the right approach to take? Any 3rd party script that needs added should be added through GTM?

Side note - We do have Google Tag Manager (GTM) installed on our websites (who are hosted with dealer.com). However, it seems like there are 3 different installations of GTM on our websites - only 1 of them are ours. Is this a problem or would this slow our site down? I'm not even sure if dealer.com installed the GTM code in the correct location.
https://support.google.com/tagassistant/answer/3207128?hl=en#multiple_tags

 

[Alexander Lau]

Modular control of scripts. There are some other advantages to using GTM like:

1. not having to launch code through regular IT dev process(es).
2. incredible amount of power & control over what gets sent to 3rd party services like GA, including using the data layer.

**The big downside is the degree of difficulty.

Most 3rd party web platforms have deployed GTM and that works out great for their side.

BTW, you can dive in and find the UA (JS) code being used using a browser-based extension such as a tag debugger, if you're curious, because that's usually cloaked.

 

[Whistring]

A lot has changed since this was first posted. Back then GTM was all browser-based, but now there’s the option to run it server-side, which can help with things like cookie control and tracking accuracy. Either way, it’s still handy for managing events, forms, and marketing tags without editing code directly. If you’re reviewing your setup, this might be worth a look: Tracking Cookies Explained for Beginners + Free Cookie Checker.