What is Google Tag Manager?
Google Tag Manager (GTM) is a tag management system (TMS) that allows site owners to add snippets of code, called tags, to a site's data layer. Tags can help site owners measure certain user actions, e.g., clicking on a specific button, scrolling, playing a video, etc. GTM is also useful for placing vendor pixel tracking code for paid marketing campaigns. It often works in parallel with Google Analytics to provide enhanced measurement across a site.
We also use GTM to deploy GA4 across all GA4 360 websites.
GTM and the Google Analytics 4 (GA4) Migration
Google is not upgrading GTM at this time. However, the GA4 Migration does have implications on various tags deployed via GTM. Some tags that track Google Analytics events use Universal Analytics (the version of GA Google is sunsetting) as a Tag Type. Those tags will need to be converted to use GA4 instead.
If you deployed custom event-tracking tags that use Universal Analytics as a tag type, you'll need to update those tags to use GA4 instead. IU Studios will provide updates on how to upgrade your tags during the migration project. Currently, please take no action. Please watch this page for more information as the migration continues.
If you are interested in learning more about Google Tag Manager, please visit the Google Tag Manager Fundamentals course on the Google Analytics Aacademy website. In 2023, the Studios Analytics Team will hold a workshop on how to tag and track your marketing campaigns.
IU Framework Default Tags for Existing GA360 Universal Analytics Sites
When upgrading websites to Universal Analytics GA 360, IU Studios created the following defatult tag set for all sites in the IU Framework. Eventually, all GA Universal Analytics tags will need to be upgraded and we will include instructions for upgrading. Currently, in order for your site to continue tracking normally, please do not attempt to remove or edit these tags:
- GA External Links (GA Universal Analytics)
- GA Internal Links (GA Universal Analytics)
- GA Left Nav Links (GA Universal Analytics)
- GA Mobile Nav Links (GA Universal Analytics)
- GA Pageviews (GA Universal Analytics)
- GA Top Nav Links (GA Universal Analytics)
- GA YouTube (GA Universal Analytics)
- HTML 5 Video (GA Universal Analytics)
- JS - HTML 5 Video (Custom HTML)
- JS - Time on Page (Custom HTML)
- UA - Timing - Time to Unload (GA Universal Analytics)