Tag Management is part of the web analytics implementation process that consists of grouping all the tags that are on a website in a single container.
Since Google released its tag manager in 2012, the term “Tag Management” began to become popular. However, before Google, there were already tools with such functionality … The main difference? Regardless of the functionalities of one or the other, they were expensive. Very expensive.
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With the arrival of Google Tag Manager,free, the rules of the game changed and this was clearly imposed as a standard in the industry, and tag management became popular in all kinds of web analytics and online marketing projects, coining new terms such as Tag Marketing.
1. What are labels?
Tags are snippets of code that are included in websites to add analysis and tracking functionality, testing, surveys and even scripts to add a chat.
As sites grow, more and more tags are added to a website, either due to internal needs or at the request of marketing service providers. in the same proportion that labels grow, the complexity of managing them increases, with labels owned by different suppliers, codes that become obsolete, slowing down loading times…
2. What are Tag Management Systems (TMS)?
Tag Managers group all the tags in a site within a single container, simplifying their management. They work by grouping all tags and injecting them into the browser via JavaScript or an iFrame.
3. Advantages of a Tag Manager
- Order: Allows you to group all the codes in a single container, which allows you to make a quick inventory of all the external codes that exist on the web.
- Site loading speed:Tag Managers allow tags to run in an orderly and asynchronous way, improving the speed of the web.
- Cost savings:many of the labeling processes (not all) can be carried out directly from the Marketing Department, without having to go through the Developer or the Systems Department, with the consequent saving of resources resources.
- Speed of implementation:Just two years ago, a web analytics tagging process could take months. A labeling guide was made, it was sent to systems, systems implemented weeks later, the implementation was validated and errors were detected, modifications to systems were requested… A real odyssey that can currently be solved in a few days, or even hours.
4. Disadvantages of a Tag Manager
- Safety: When you give access to your tag manager to a user, you have to know that you are giving him the key to your site to do with him as he pleases, since he will have the possibility to enter, not only tracking codes of a specific tool, but he will be able to execute any type of code on your site.
- Privacy:By giving a third party access to the “tag manager”, you may be giving third parties access to data collected by the site. Given the implications that this has at the legal level, it is sometimes necessary for the legal department of the company (or an external legal auditor) to validate that such labels comply with the privacy policy of the company and the markets in which it is present. To prevent problems in this regard, it is important that there is always a publication protocol, where it is clear who owns the processes, and who has the ultimate responsibility for the publication of the changes that can be made in a container.
5. Conclusion
Tag Management and tag managers are already a standardized solution that is here to stay. They allow implementations of measurement systems in an agile way and without having to resort to a technician or a developer every time you want to make a change. However, it is necessary to take some basic precautions about who has access to them, and what is the function they develop, since there may be both technical (code conflicts) and legal implications.
In short, your tag manager is going to become your best ally in online marketing… And if you don’t know him yet… what are you waiting for?
