How To Implement Google Analytics Using Google Tag Manager (GTM)

Google Tag Manager is a tag management system. It makes adding tracking scripts to your website easy, without the need for adding scripts directly into the code. Google Tag Manager provides a more efficient way to deploy your Google Analytics tracking, including enabling tracking opportunities that are harder to implement using Google Analytics alone.

Google Tag Manager components

There are a few key components to understand before starting with Google Tag Manager. These are Tags, Triggers and Variables, which lie at the core of Google Tag Manager.

Tags – Code snippets used for analytics, marketing and support purposes.
Triggers – These cause tags to ‘fire’ when a specific event happens e.g. a contact form submission.
Variables – Dynamically populated data fields e.g. your Google Analytics ID

In this guide you’ll learn how to add a Google Analytics tag that uses that gets triggered on all pages.

Step 1) Create a Google Tag Manager account

To get Google Tag Manager you will need to create an account which you can do here: https://tagmanager.google.com/.

In Google Tag Manager, click ‘Accounts‘ and then click ‘Create account‘.
Enter an account name and optionally indicate whether you’d like to share data anonymously with Google and others.
Click Continue.
Enter a descriptive container name and select the type of content: Web.
Click Create.
Review the Terms of Service and click Yes if you agree to those terms.

You will now be prompted to install the web container code snippet.

Step 2) Install the Google Tag Manager container

The next step is to install your Google Tag Manager container. To do this you will need to edit the <head> of your website templates.

google tag manager snippet — Example of Tag Manager snippet on witneyseoguy.co.uk

Place the <script> code snippet in the <head> of your web page’s HTML output, preferably as close to the opening <head> tag as possible.
Place the <noscript> code snippet immediately after the <body> tag in your HTML output.

Step 3) Add and publish Google Analytics tag

Now that the container is installed, you’re ready to add your Google Analytics tracking tag.

1) Click ‘Tags‘ from the navigation menu and then click ‘New‘.

google tag manager workspace — Example of workspace on witneyseoguy.co.uk

2) Click anywhere in the ‘Tag Configuration’ section to start adding a new tag

google tag manager configuration — GTM tag configuration section

3) Select the Google Analytics: Universal Analytics tag type and under Google Analytics Settings click New Variable…

google tag manager google analytics tracking tag — GTM tag configuration window

4) Add your Google Analytics tracking code into the Tracking ID field and click Save

google tag manager variable window — GTM variable window

5) You should now be back at the Tag Configuration window. At the bottom of this window you will find the Tag Triggering section. Click anywhere in this section to set up a trigger

google tag trigger configuration section — GTM tag triggering section

6) Select the All Pages trigger and click ‘Save‘

google tag manager choose a trigger section — GTM choose a trigger section

7) Preview mode gives you an opportunity to inspect your Tag Manager configuration on your site to make sure everything behaves as expected. You can use the debug option to see which tags fire as you browse and interact with the site.

8) When you’re ready to publish your changes, click ‘Submit’. From here you’ll be able to add container details and publish your changes.

google tag manager dashboard header — GTM dashboard header

Additional tracking

Google Analytics will now start firing on every page, collecting information about the traffic on your website. It’s also worth setting up additional tracking on conversion points, such as your contact form. This can help you to monitor how your website users are reaching their goals, which is vital for Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO).