For a long time, Google has been working towards integrating their products. tagging platform.
Any product equipped with (or associated with) a “tag” falls under this umbrella.These consist of tools such as Google Tag Manager, Google Ads, Google Optimizeand of course, google analytics.
If you look under the hood, all the above tools are already gtag.js library.this global site tag Slowly but surely it became the de facto client library used by Google’s tagging platform on the web.
Now, Google is taking the integration process even deeper with the introduction of yet another comprehensive technology. of Google tag.
Read the release blog post here.
There is a lot of overlap with the global site tag, but this new Google tag In reality, it’s considerably more than that.
In this article, we’ll take a look at what Google tags are and what the underlying model looks like. This is not a detailed explanation or a complete tutorial. Especially since one of the main advantages of Google tags is the integration of analytics and ad measurement on the client side, there will be people much better than me writing these. I have little interest in discussing the latter.
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Google Tags is gtag.js – and much more
By default, Google tags are almost identical to individual gtag.js measurement products.
For example, when you create a new GA4 stream or Google Ads pixel, a corresponding Google tag is created at the same time. At this point both Google tags have a one-to-one relationship with their respective tagging endpoints. destination.
In this scenario, Google tags don’t bring any additional benefits to the mix, but you can of course take advantage of the new tags. access control level, event detectionand other features (these are detailed below).
Where Google Tags really start to shine is when Combine multiple Google tags unite and/or add Multiple destinations in one Google tag.
you mix If you have more than one Google tag, these tags automatically share Main features such Event detection configuration, Cross-domain measurement list, destination And, importantly, tag coverage.
For example, when combining G-123456 and AW-567890, each tagging implementation ( gtag.js) becomes interchangeable. Installing G-123456 or AW-567890 on a particular website makes no real difference.
from tag coverage This means that if 80% of your website is tagged with G-123456 and 30% (including the 20% missing from the GA4 deployment) tagged with AW-567890: increase. 100% tag coverage10% of duplicates are deduplicated by default.
When combining tags, you must choose which tag configuration to use as the blueprint for all combined tags. This way, cross-domain tracking settings, event detection, and user access level configurations can be shared across all combined tags (and of course their respective destinations).
Google tag settings
So what is actually shared when tags are combined? What settings can be made at the Google tag level so that the Google tag will be inherited by the destinations it collects data from?
Not all of these settings are suitable for all destination types, as a small note at the top. for example, Definition of internal traffic Actually only relevant for Google Analytics 4 data streams.
As you may have noticed, these settings are really just rehashes of what’s under each destination. However, the purpose of configuring them using Google Tags is to allow multiple, combined tags (and destinations) to benefit from a single, centralized configuration.
Event detection and extended measurements
At this point, it’s a good idea to clarify the difference from setting up Google tags. event detection Settings and Configuring a Single GA4 Destination enhanced measurement Options – The two are very similar.
event detection is a feature of Google Tags and can be configured here The types of events on the page that the tag is set to monitor.
For example, you can configure Google tags to do the following: that’s all monitor outbound click.
These event detection settings set parameters that can be configured in the GA4’s advanced measurement settings.
In that case, all GA4 destinations added to the Google tag will be at most Only outbound click data can be collected.Outbound clicks can be toggled off Leave it on in the advanced measurement settings for one connected GA4 destination, but leave it on for another GA4 destination. However, even if you switch, for example, scroll event upon In GA4 data stream settings, these are No Collected because event detection is not enabled in Google tagging.
If you know the terminology of data engineering, think in terms of a publisher/subscriber setup. Google tag is set to detection When Release Send the event to the destination set in the Google tag. These destinations can: apply to all or part of these events. However, destinations cannot measure events that were not broadcast by Google tags.
tag destination
Each GA4 web stream and each Google Ads conversion is now known as a Google tag destination.
As mentioned above, by default, creating a new destination automatically creates its own Google tag.
Each destination can only be added to one Google tag.
You can do it delete Add the destination of the original Google tag to another Google tag.
This is useful if you don’t want your destination to be controlled by previous Google tags.
For example, if you were working with an agency that used a GA4 destination in their Google tag, you could remove that destination from their Google tag and add it to your site’s own Google tag so that your agency can remove the destination data. You can make it out of your control. collection.
Combining and adding destinations is not consolidation
you might want to think that Google tag combination and/or Add multiple GA4 streams as destinationsallows you to effectively duplicate a single tagging configuration to multiple different destinations for all events collected through that configuration.
this is not how it works.
When you add multiple destinations to a Google tag (either by combining tags or just adding destinations), it actually multiplies Tagging configuration.
On the page, this is config Global site tag API calls.
When config Main API call (or GA4 Config tag in GTM) Google tag or either Combined A Google tag runs on the page and all destinations added to the page also start a collection.
Enhanced measurement events are sent to all destinations including page view hits Unless a config tag prevents automatic collection of page view events.
All other GA4 (or ad) events are sent only to the destinations configured in the event itself.
That’s where Google tags come in handy. install Various destinations for a particular website.it doesn’t Tagging For you.
Overview
With the increasingly complex management infrastructure of Google’s tagging ecosystem, large enterprises with more diverse data collection needs will most benefit from consolidating multiple tag configurations into one place. So, at launch, Google tags are definitely targeted for enterprise use. .
I’m afraid the duplication of the Google tag and the global site tag will make things even worse, but once you understand how important the Google tag is, management feature and the global site tag is client side It’s a Google tag component and everything should make sense.
Out-of-the-box Google tags let you control event types can Cross-domain measurement settings that are automatically detected on your site or used by connected destinations, who can view and change tag settings, etc.
once you mix Using Google Tags (especially across tagging products such as GA4 and Google Ads) really allows you to take advantage of the functionality described in this article. At that point, the Google tag will be more than the sum of its parts.
Do you think Google Tags is a welcome addition to Google’s already very extensive (and often confusing) tagging service? It makes sense to consolidate tagging efforts across products. Do you think so? Let the readers know in the comments section below!
