Tag Technology

Asynchronous tag loading

Google Tag Manager fires all tags asynchronously. This means tags load as they’re ready to load, in parallel with other page elements. So slow tags won’t hobble your site or prevent other tags from firing. This can lead to faster page loads and more data collection.

Define reusable variables

Google Tag Manager lets you select important data elements on your site pages and collect them easily. For example, you only need to define once where "total price" is found on your page, and then Google Tag Manager can pass that value through to all of your tags. Learn more about variables and macros.

Smart caching

Google Tag Manager minimizes the number of requests made to our servers through the use of intelligent caching, allowing bandwidth to be spent on firing all your other tags.

Tag Blacklist

Our Tag Blacklist lets administrators define specific tags or tag types that can never be added to the site. This helps keep your site safe from malicious software. Learn more about the Tag Blacklist.

Usability

Easy-to-use web interface

Google Tag Manager takes advantage of Google design principles to make the tool straightforward and easy-to-use.

Publish in seconds

With just a couple of clicks, you can add new tags or edit your existing tags, and then publish these changes to your users in seconds.

Preview Mode

Want to see how the changes you've made actually work before deploying live to your site? Preview Mode gives you a glimpse into how a new tagging configuration would work before you publish it. Learn more about Preview Mode.

Debug Console

As part of our Preview Mode, Google Tag Manager provides an additional tool to help you understand how your tags are functioning. Rather than wading through lots of extra detail in standard web-developer tools, you can use our specialized Debug Console to self-check which tags are firing. Learn more about the Debug Console.

Site tag overview

The overview lets you see all tags within your container—and any associated rules—at a glance. You can easily select a particular tag if you need to make changes or remove it, or you can add new tags at any time.

Version history

Thanks to our versioning feature, you keep a history of what's been published on your site. If changes are made and you’d like to go back to a prior version, it’s easy to flip back. Learn more about version history.

Accounts & User Roles

Multi-account support

Agencies that manage multiple accounts for different clients can see all of their accounts in one place, and can switch between them seamlessly.

Multi-user support

Multiple users can access the same account, making it easy to work with different members of your team.

User level permissions

When making a tagging change, there are often two sets of users: a non-technical user who knows the business needs around tagging and a technical user who understands website technical needs. Our user-permissions system allows you to select the level of access for different users; so, for example, marketers can specify what changes they want made, and trusted members of the IT or webmaster team can actually push changes live to the site. Learn more about users and permissions.

Tag Firing Rules

URL-based

Set a tag to fire based on the URL of a page. For example, only fire when the page URL matches your thank-you page. Learn more about tag-firing rules.

Referrer-based

Set a tag to fire based on the referral source for the page. For example, fire a tag only if a user came to the page from an affiliate, or fire a tag if the user came to this page immediately after visiting another specific page on your site. Learn more about tag-firing rules.

Event-based

Set a tag to fire based on user “events” on the site—such as downloading a file or watching a video. Learn more about tag-firing rules.

Custom macros

Design your own custom macros to fire a tag based on the value of an element or data in the page, such as if a user buys an item worth more than a certain amount. Learn more about custom macros.

Supported Tags

Tag templates

Custom image tags

If you’d like to add an image tag that’s not yet included as a tag template, just select the Custom Image tag type. Learn more about adding Custom Image Tags.

Custom HTML tags

If you’d like to add an HTML tag that’s not yet included as a tag template, just select the Custom HTML tag type. Learn more about adding Custom HTML tags.

Custom javascript

Custom javascript tags can be added using the Custom HTML feature—just wrap your javascript with <script> </script>