Tag Archives: google tag manager

Spotlight on Google Tag Manager: Open and Secure Tag Management

With Google Tag Manager and Tag Manager 360, we make it easy for marketers to manage tags on their sites and apps for fast, flexible implementation of new marketing technologies. Last week at SMX East, we announced that we’ve added more than 20 new tag templates to Google Tag Manager to empower marketers to move faster and make decisions with confidence. This is one of a couple recent changes to make Tag Manager more open and more secure.

New third-party tag templates

Google Tag Manager already includes easy-to-use tag templates for many Google and non-Google tools. And, while we support implementing all other tags using a variety of custom tag types, we’re dedicated to expanding the number of third-party tag templates available to you. Tag templates make it easy to add and maintain tags on your sites and apps without code. This means that less technical users can be more involved, errors are less likely, and your sites are ultimately more secure.

To make it easier and safer to deploy third-party tags, we've developed an open format that allows vendors like Microsoft, Twitter, and Nielsen to implement and maintain their own tag templates in Google Tag Manager. For companies whose products depend on tags, having a tag template in Google Tag Manager is a great way to make implementation easier than ever.



"The seamless integration of Digital Content Ratings — a key component of Nielsen's Total Audience measurement framework — into Google Tag Manager will enable easy deployment and rapid adoption of Nielsen measurement with savvy digital clients."
– David Wong, SVP of Product Leadership at Nielsen



Our Vendor Tag Template Program allows tag providers to natively integrate with our tag templating system. Google performs a security review of each tag that is submitted through the program. The resulting tags are integrated into Tag Manager, and displayed with the company’s logo and an easy-to-use form to configure and deploy the tag.


"At Hotjar we're obsessed about giving our users fast and actionable insights about how their visitors are using their site. Our top most priority is making it easy and simple to set up Hotjar. For this reason, we're extremely excited to provide 'out-of-the-box' support for Google Tag Manager."
– David Darmanin, CEO of Hotjar



Some recent additions include:


Are you a vendor who would like your tag supported? Learn more about the Vendor Tag Template Program and enroll here.

Secure container loading

At Google, we constantly look to develop products with best in class security. Google Tag Manager already has a host of security features such as user access controls, 2-step verification, malware detection, and tag blacklists. We’ve now also made some changes to the Google Tag Manager container snippet — given out in our user interface and documentation — to improve security and performance even more.

Previously, the Tag Manager container snippet loaded containers in a protocol-relative manner. That is, on pages with an https:// URL, the container would be loaded securely using HTTPS. Our new snippets will always use the secure protocol (HTTPS) by default, regardless of the protocol of the page. This helps protect containers from malicious parties and snooping, and in many cases, will also improve performance.

You’ll also notice that we’ve made a change to how we recommend Tag Manager be implemented, now with the container snippet split into two parts:
  • A JavaScript snippet that should be implemented as high in the <head> of your page as possible to ensure the best tag performance. This change is especially important if you plan to use Tag Manager to deploy Google Optimize.
  • An iframe snippet that should be implemented just after the opening <body> tag. This snippet handles firing of image pixels for users with JavaScript disabled, and also enables Google Search Console verification.
To get the best performance, it’s recommended that you implement both container snippets following the latest installation instructions.

What if you already have Google Tag Manager implemented on your site? Not to worry: These changes are optional, and your existing implementations will continue to work without a problem. To get the highest level of security and performance, you can update your implementations at your earliest convenience.

Happy tagging!

Posted by Scott Herman, Product Manager, Google Tag Manager

Announcing: Smart, Fast-Acting Analytics — For Everyone

This past March, we launched the Google Analytics 360 Suite, a set of integrated data and marketing analytics products designed for the needs of enterprise-class marketers in today’s multi-screen world. 

Today we have another exciting announcement. Next month we’ll start rolling out a new product: Google Optimize — a free version of our enterprise-class testing and personalization product, Google Optimize 360. Google Optimize will be globally available at that time. Additionally, we’re including enhancements to many of our existing free products. Read on for details.

Businesses of all sizes need tools to measure and succeed 

First of all, why this free product now? Because companies big and small face the same challenge today: Consumer expectations are higher than ever in a mobile-first world. How can brands be more useful to people in their moments of need? With ever more data flooding in, marketers need access to the right data so they can uncover useful insights — and act on them quickly.

The companies that are already making this leap from data to action are transforming their businesses by becoming more useful to consumers throughout these micro-moments. How? Analytics and testing are the key. In fact, according to an Econsultancy survey of 4,000 marketers, the top two digital trends in 2020 are going to be a focus on customer experience (24%) and personalization (23%).

That’s what has led to today's announcement. We've made several advancements to the free versions of our analytics products to bring modern measurement to everyone, and help them create happier customers by providing more relevant experiences. Let’s take a closer look.


  1. How can every business deliver personalized customer experiences?
    Google Optimize     (beta). This free web and mobile-web testing and personalization tool helps businesses improve their customer experiences and business metrics. Because it’s built on top of Google Analytics, businesses can use their existing information to experiment and personalize site experiences with minimal setup requirements. Request an invite.

"With Google Optimize, we’ve been able to provide more engaging content to The Next Web's readers – converting them from new readers to loyal customers."
Martijn Scheijbeler 
Director of Marketing - The Next Web



  1. How can everyone access and share powerful data?
    Google Data Studio     (beta), our free reporting and data visualization product, is now available globally in 21 new countries.* It enables businesses to easily spot and share insights, and collaborate to drive better decisions. Additionally, next month we’re launching report templates, making it even easier to get started. As with templates in Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets, businesses can create, edit, and use a library of templates to get up and running in a matter of minutes. Get started. The enterprise and free versions of Google Data Studio launched earlier this year in the U.S. These updates are also available in Data Studio 360, part of the Google Analytics 360 Suite.  



  1. How can everyone get useful insights, not just more data?
    Google Analytics    , our free customer analytics product and measurement centerpiece, analyzes customer data from all touchpoints — and soon it’s becoming even smarter. Following the launch of our automated insight stream in the Google Analytics mobile app, we’re excited to announce Session Quality Score: A new metric that incorporates machine learning to predict the likelihood of a visitor making a transaction (purchase) on your site or app. Businesses can use session quality score to provide better customer experiences and / or remarket to their most engaged website visitors. This feature is coming soon in beta and will also be available in Analytics 360, part of the Google Analytics 360 Suite.




  1. How can everyone gain full visibility into customer journeys?
    Google Tag Manager empowers marketers to move faster and make decisions with confidence. It offers a simplified way to gather site information (all those tiny bits of code), and powerful APIs to increase data accuracy and streamline workflows. And today we’re greatly expanding our openness by integrating an additional 20 tags from Quantcast, Twitter, Microsoft Bing, Nielsen, and many more. See the full list of supported tags here. These updates will roll out over the next couple weeks and are also available in Tag Manager 360, part of the Google Analytics 360 Suite.




Modern measurement for everyone 

Put simply, that's our goal with these new free products. As today’s businesses are shifting to compete on customer experience and personalized marketing, we want to give all businesses the tools and access to compete — and ultimately, drive better online consumer experiences.

If you’re interested in learning more, please watch our blog this week and next. We’ll dive deeper into each product announcement and show you how they work. In the meantime, check out the resources below to learn more.
As always, you can visit our website to sign-up for our free analytics products.

*Canada, Brazil, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Indonesia, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam

Posted by Babak Pahlavan, Senior Director of Product Management, Analytics Solutions and Measurement, Google

Making tagging easy in DoubleClick Campaign Manager

Last week we dove into the new audience capabilities in DoubleClick Campaign Manager that enable you to define, reach, and more deeply understand your customers. Tags plays a critical role in this process, as they allow you to track and measure the impact of your advertising. Today, we’ll dive into how we’re making tagging a much easier and more streamlined part of your digital marketing campaign management.

As it stands today, tagging is one of the most difficult and time-consuming aspects of digital campaign management. In fact, on average, marketers host 14 tags on their sites, 68% of which are third-party. Implementing these tags often involves back-and-forth emails, implementation that can take weeks or months, and a lack of transparency about which tags are installed where. And when tags are implemented incorrectly, it can cause further campaign delays and additional implementation cycles.

We recently introduced two features that will greatly reduce the inefficiencies involved in tagging your campaigns: DoubleClick’s integration with Google Tag Manager, and Tag Assistant.

Making conversion tagging easy with Google Tag Manager integration

To streamline the conversion tagging process, DoubleClick Campaign Manager is now integrated with Google Tag Manager, Google’s free tag management solution. With Google Tag Manager, rather than implementing many individual tags across your site, you can implement one site-wide container tag that uses rules to determine which Google and third-party tracking and measurement tags to dynamically fire. The integration allows you to easily push DoubleClick’s universal conversion tag - Floodlight - directly to Google Tag Manager, making tag deployment faster and and more efficient, while still respecting current campaign management roles.


Deploy tags more quickly: You can push Floodlight tags with one click to Google Tag Manager, reducing implementation time from weeks or even months to minutes. This means you’ll save time, and your campaigns can go live faster. Once your tags are implemented, you can update them in the Google Tag Manager interface in minutes, and you will see these tags deployed on your site within 15 minutes or less. The tags are fired asynchronously, which means they load without blocking other elements on the page from loading, enabling sites to load faster during high-traffic times.



Implement tags more efficiently: With Google Tag Manager, you can rest assured your conversion tags are implemented correctly, as there is only one site-wide contain tag to implement. This helps reduce human error and ensures accurate data is recorded, thanks to rules within Google Tag Manager that determine which tracking and measurement tags to dynamically fire. And you will be able to deploy Floodlight tags across both mobile and desktop pages, making the experience consistent across all devices.


Respect tagging roles: We recognize that different roles within your organization may be responsible for each step of the tagging process. Our goal with this integration was to respect these roles and give you tools to implement tags correctly as quickly as possible. Advertisers still have control over which conversion tags are pushed to Google Tag Manager, and webmasters still have control over which tags go on the page, as they can approve or reject tags within Google Tag Manager.


Simplifying ad tagging with Tag Assistant

Beyond simplifying conversion tagging, we’re also improving how you implement ad tags. One of these initiatives is Tag Assistant, which aims at simplifying the QA process.

Tag Assistant is a Chrome extension that automatically validates the implementation of Google tags on any of your pages. The tool is designed for you to checks tags on the fly and escalate more complex or in-depth issues to support teams.


How it works: Tag Assistant has a predefined list of implementation checks to perform for each tag. When the web page loads, Tag Assistant scans the page, compares your tag implementation against the correct/standard implementation, and cross-references the list of implementation checks. If your tag is implemented correctly, Tag Assistant returns a green status. When a problem is found, a red status is returned along with recommendations and support documentation. The tool not only supports DoubleClick ad tags, but Google Tag Manager, AdWords, and Google Analytics tags as well.

If you're an existing DFA customer, reach out to your account manager about upgrading to DoubleClick Campaign Manager today. You can stay on top of new updates by subscribing to our newsletter and following us on our Google+ page.