What is tagging?
Tagging is the process of adding snippets of code (called tags) to each page of your website so you can learn about the people who visit your site and how they interact with it.
Tagging is an integral part of many measurement products, including Google Ads, Google Analytics, and many third-party products too.
Whether you want to know about your most popular blog posts, most effective landing pages, or most popular products, the data you'll collect through tagging enables you to make more informed decisions about your site and your marketing strategies.
What is the Google tag?
To use a variety of Google and third-party measurement products, you must add the Google tag to your website.
The Google tag is a single piece of code that you can find in Google Ads, Google Analytics, and other similar Google products. The Google tag looks the same for everyone, but the ID in the Google tag (called the tag ID) is unique to you and your business.
Benefits
The Google tag (with your tag ID) only needs to be added to each page of your website once. After that, you can start collecting data like page views, clicks, and scrolls; configure tag settings for those products; and connect the tag to multiple Google products (called destinations).
Setting up the Google tag
Setting up the Google tag depends on how your site is set up and how easily you can change the code. You can implement the Google tag on your site in one of the following ways:
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gtag.js: gtag.js is a JavaScript tagging framework that allows you to send data from your site to Google measurement products. To set up gtag.js, you add 1 snippet of code to each page of your website. To use the gtag.js effectively, you need to be comfortable changing the code on your site using JavaScript.
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Google Tag Manager: Google Tag Manager is a tag management system that allows you to set up and manage tags on your site without changing your website's code. To use Tag Manager, you add 2 snippets of code to each page of your website. After you add the snippets to your code, you don't need to change your code much after that; instead, you can set up and manage your tags through the Google Tag Manager website.
Content management systems
If you use a content management system like Wordpress, Shopify, or Wix, the content management system may offer an easy integration for setting up gtag.js and/or Google Tag Manager on your site.