Your Google Tag Manager container and Google destinations

When you connect your Google Tag Manager (GTM) containers to Google destinations using destination tags, you'll see the destination accounts for these tags added in the “Google destinations” table in the settings tab alongside those workspace changes.

Adding a Google destination to your Google Tag Manager container

Google Ads

To add a Google Ads destination to your Google Tag Manager container

1. In your Tag Manager overview page, select Add Tag. Alternatively, go to "Tags", then select New (top right)
2. Select Tag Configuration Google Ads Google Ads
3. Replace Untitled Tag with the name of your tag (for example, 'Google Ads AW-XXXX').
4. To find your Conversion ID, follow these steps:
   • In your Google Ads account, select the Goals icon
   • In “Conversions”, under “Summary”, select the conversion action you want to track.
   • At the “Tag setup” section, select Use Google Tag Manager.
   • Copy your Conversion ID. The Conversion ID is unique per Google Ads account, while the Conversion Label is unique per conversion action.
5. In Tag Manager, add the required Conversion ID
6. In the Triggering section, it will default to “Initialization - All Pages”. If you want to update this, select the pencil icon and update it as necessary. Learn more about Page view triggers. In general, we recommend triggering this on all pages.
7. Select Save to complete your tag setup.
8. Preview your changes and publish when ready.

Google Analytics

1. Go to Google Tag Manager.
2. Sign in to your Google Account. Learn how to create a Google Account.
3. In Tag Manager, select the Accounts tab (top left), then select your container. Find your way around Tag Manager.
4. In your Tag Manager overview page, select Add Tag. Alternatively, go to "Tags", then select New (top right)
5. In the panel, follow these steps:
   • Replace Untitled Tag with the name of your tag (for example, 'Google tag').
   • In the "Tag Configuration" section:
     1. In "Choose tag type", select Google Tag.
     2. In "Tag ID", enter your Tag ID. Learn how to find your Tag ID.
     3. Optional: You can set up additional configuration options to govern how your Google tag communicates with its destinations. If you set up the Google tag and want to keep all its default settings, you can skip the optional settings.

        Optional settings

        Global parameter settings

        If you need to establish common context across several Google tags, you can specify global parameters using gtag.js directly on your website. Global parameters are read by all Google tags on your website. Use this option only for non-sensitive data. Learn how to reuse parameters across multiple tags, in the developer documentation.

        Configuration settings

        You can specify additional configuration parameters that influence the Google tag settings. To reuse configuration across Google tags, create a configuration settings variable.

        Shared event settings

        You can specify additional parameters that are sent with every event, for example the currency of a price. Event parameters are only valid for the tag you add them to. To reuse event settings across Google tags, create a Google Tag Event Settings variable. Use recommended event parameter names so that Google Analytics can populate dimensions and metrics for you.

        Send data to a tagging server

        Server-side tagging allows you to move some tags off of your website or app and onto a server instead, which allows you to improve performance. Learn more about server-side tagging. To send all events to a Tag Manager server container instead of Google Analytics, you need to configure the following parameter:

        1. Open the Configuration settings menu.
        2. Set up the server container URL by adding a new configuration parameter:
           1. Name: server_container_url
           2. Value: Set to the server container URL of your Tag Manager server container
     4. Result: Your configuration parameters should look like this.

        Set up user properties

        User properties are attributes that describe groups of your user base, such as their language preferences or geographic locations. You can use user properties to define audiences. For example, you can set a user property called favorite_food, which you can use to record each user's favorite food. You can use the data to segment users by their favorite food. Analytics automatically collects some user dimensions so you don't have to define user properties for them. You can set up to 25 additional user properties per Google Analytics 4 property.

        To measure custom user properties you need to create a new Google Tag Event Settings variable and then assign it to the Google tag.

   • In the Triggering section, select Initialization - All Initialization Events or Some Initialization Events. Learn more about Page view triggers.
6. Select Save.

Floodlight

To add a Floodlight destination to your Google Tag Manager container

1. In your Tag Manager overview page, select Add Tag. Alternatively, go to "Tags", then select New (top right)
2. Select Tag Configuration Floodlight Floodlight
3. To find your Advertiser ID, follow the steps described here.
4. In Tag Manager, add the required Advertiser ID.
5. In the Triggering section, it will default to “Initialization - All Pages”. If you want to update this, select the pencil icon and update it as necessary. Learn more about Page view triggers. In general, we recommend triggering this on all pages
6. Select Save to complete your tag setup.
7. Preview your changes and publish when ready.

Merchant Center

To add a Merchant Center destination to your Google Tag Manager container

1. In your Tag Manager overview page, select Add Tag. Alternatively, go to "Tags", then select New (top right)
2. Select Tag Configuration Merchant Center Merchant Center.
3. To find your Conversion Source ID, follow the steps described here. It would be the ID starting with MC-.
4. In Tag Manager, add the required Conversion Source ID.
5. In the Triggering section, it will default to “Initialization - All Pages”. If you want to update this, select the pencil icon and update it as necessary. Learn more about Page view triggers. In general, we recommend triggering this on all pages.
6. Select Save to complete your tag setup.
7. Preview your changes and publish when ready.

Note: If you add an event tag for a destination, and there is no destination tag or Google tag connected to that destination detected in the container, we will automatically provision a destination tag for that destination.

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Settings tab in Google Tag Manager

The settings tab lists all Google destinations to which you’re sending data from your Google Tag Manager, and their associated configurations.

Destinations

This section shows all the Google destinations that you have connected and are sending data to. Learn more about destinations

Settings

You can manage the settings of your Google destinations directly connected to the container via Destination tags centrally in this section. If you need to override the settings for a specific destination, update the configuration for that destination through its destination tag configuration.

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Configure your Google destination tag(s) settings

When you're in the "Settings" page of Google Tag Manager, click Show all to review all available settings.

Note: Tag settings affect the behavior of the Google destinations connected to your container directly and the data sent to configured destinations. Some settings may be more or less relevant for you depending on which products you use.If you load a Google tag in your container and use it to send data to a destination, these central settings don't apple and you will need to update its settings directly in the Google tag's configuration.

 

You may choose to configure settings that are less relevant for your currently connected destinations. When you add new product destinations or their capabilities change, the settings will go into effect.

Configuration settings	Description	Relevant to Google Analytics	Relevant to Google Ads	Relevant to Campaign Manager 360
Manage automatic event detection	Configure which types of events your Google destination tag(s) should automatically detect for measurement in associated destinations. Page view events are automatically sent and this can’t be changed.	Yes	Yes	Not used
Configure your domains	Specify a list of domains for cross-domain measurement.	Yes	Yes	Yes
Allow user-provided data capabilities	Configure whether your Google destination tag(s) should allow user-provided data to be included in measurement for destination products that accept such data.	Yes	Yes	Yes
Define internal traffic	Define IP addresses whose traffic should be marked as internal.	Yes	Not used	Not used
List unwanted referrals	Specify domains whose traffic shouldn't be considered to be referrals.	Yes	Not used	Not used
Adjust session timeout	Set how long sessions can last.	Yes	Not used	Not used
Override cookie settings	Change how long cookies last and how they're updated.	Yes	Not used	Not used
Set consent mode override	Override the default consent settings in your website code and instead set the default to 'denied' for all the regions you choose.	Yes	Yes	Yes
Manage default consent settings	Indicate whether you've obtained user consent for data sent to Google.	Yes	Yes	Yes

Manage automatic event detection

Select which types of events the Google destination tag(s) directly connected to your Google Tag Manager container  should automatically detect for measurement. By default, all event types are turned on.

If you turn off automatic event detection, no products or accounts that are directly connected to this Google Tag Manager container via destination tags will receive associated data. You may want to consider turning off collection of these events in your destination product instead.

By default, all event types are turned on. Click the switch to turn the following event types off:

• Page views on browser history change: Detect a page view event each time the website changes the browser history state. This setting is useful for detecting page views in single-page applications.
• Scrolls: Detect scroll events each time a visitor gets to the bottom of the page.
• Outbound clicks: Detect an outbound click event each time a visitor clicks a link that leads them away from your domain(s). By default, outbound click events will occur for all links leading away from the current domain. Links to domains configured for cross-domain measurement (in the “Configure your domains” setting) won't trigger outbound click events.
• Form interactions: Detect a form interaction or form submission event each time a visitor interacts with a form on your site.
• Video engagement: Detect video play, video progress, and video complete events as visitors view embedded videos on your site. By default, video events will be automatically detected for YouTube videos embedded in your site with JS API support enabled.
• File downloads: Detect a file download event each time a link is clicked with a common document, compressed file, application, video, or audio extension.

Configure your domains

Specify all of your domains that use this tag. This list enables cross-domain measurement and further defines which links on your site don't trigger outbound click events when using automatic event detection.

1. If you use the same Google tag snippet across domains, they're automatically detected and show up in the "Recommendations" section. To accept a recommendation, click Add.
   To manually add a domain, click Add condition under "Include domains that match the following conditions":
   • Choose a match type.
   • Under "Domain", enter the identifier for the domain you want to match (for example, example.com).
   • Add each domain you want to include in cross-domain measurement.
2. When you’ve specified all the domains that use this tag, click Save.

The changes you make here could affect other Google tags or destinations loaded on the same page.

Verify that cross-domain measurement is working properly

Cross-domain measurement works by appending parameters to the URLs on your website. In rare cases, your web server might run into an error, such as returning a 5xx error response code or failing to start a download.

To verify cross-domain measurement works:

1. Open a page of your site that contains a link or a form that points to a domain you configured for cross-domain measurement.
2. Click the link or submit the form to navigate to the destination domain.
3. Verify that the page loads correctly.
4. Verify that the URL in the destination domain contains the linker parameter _gl. For example: https://www.example.com/?_gl=1*abcde5*.
5. If your website provides any downloads, navigate to a page with the linking parameter in the URL and start a download. Verify that the download starts successfully.

If you encounter an error, try Troubleshooting cross-domain measurement.

Allow user-provided data capabilities

User-provided data helps improve measurement and give you more insights with data that people provide to your website. Google will only use the data you share to provide you services, including technical support. Google won't share your data with others.

Destination product terms

No data will be collected by destination products if that data is disallowed by that product’s Terms of Service or if the terms required for collecting data from this feature aren’t accepted.

• Google Ads: Google Ads Data Processing Terms
• Google Analytics: Google Analytics Data Processing Terms
• Campaign Manager 360: How Google uses Google Marketing Platform advertising product data

Configuration

1. To control whether any destination products can receive data from this feature, enable or disable the Allow user-provided data capabilities option.
   • Note: If you choose to turn off “User provided data”, no products or accounts that are directly connected to your container via Destination tags will receive data from this feature.
   • Note: If you still load an intermediary Google tag in your container to send data, the changes made in this page won’t apply. You will also need to update the settings of the intermediary Google tag.
2. Choose how you want to include user-provided data. User-provided data will be hashed to keep it private and then sent along to your destination products that are configured to receive it with other event data. You can enable one or more configuration options:
   1. Automatic detection: Automatically inspect the page for strings that match a pattern for email addresses.
   2. CSS and variable selectors: Specify CSS selectors or JavaScript variables on your page.
   3. Manual via code: Modify your Google tag to collect data on the account level, see Setting up enhanced conversions with the Google Tag.
3. Click Save.

Note: The use of this tag is subject to the terms governing the service where it's used.

Define internal traffic

Define IP addresses whose traffic should be marked with a custom traffic type identifier. Incoming traffic from matching IP addresses will have a traffic_type parameter appended with the selected value.

Tip: This feature can be used to mark internal traffic in coordination with settings in destination products, like data filtering in Google Analytics.

1. Click Create.
2. In the top right corner, select the pencil icon to edit the configuration.
3. In the “Rule name” section, give your rule a descriptive name.
4. In the “traffic_type” section, choose the name of the traffic_type parameter. The default value is ’internal’.
5. In the “IP address” section, select your match type and enter a value. If you don’t know your IP address, click What’s my IP address?. Matching can be done on either IPv4 or IPv6 addresses. Ranges of IP addresses can be specified using CIDR notation, such as 192.0.2.0/24 or 2001:db8::/32. Learn more about CIDR notation.
6. Use distinct values to help you differentiate and filter different sets of traffic.
7. Click Add conditions.
8. Click Create.

List unwanted referrals

Specify domains whose traffic shouldn't be considered to be referrals. This feature will append the ignore_referrer parameter to events on pages where the traffic source matches the specified domains.

Tip: This feature can be used to specify referral traffic that you don’t want to affect your measurement in destination products (for example, ignoring unwanted referrals in Google Analytics).

1. Select to ignore referrals that match any of the following conditions as traffic sources. You can select a match type that:
   1. Contains
   2. Begins with
   3. Ends with
   4. Exactly matches
   5. Matches RegEx
2. Click Add conditions.
3. Click Create.

Adjust session timeout

Products like Google Analytics 4 that receive data from the Google tag use sessions to measure periods of user activity on websites where the tag is installed. Use this feature to change how long sessions should last by adjusting how long it takes before sessions expire due to inactivity or become engaged sessions.

1. Adjust session timeout by selecting the hours and minutes. A session is initiated when a webpage is opened. A session ends after a period of inactivity on the part of the user. The default timeout is 30 minutes but can be adjusted here.
2. Adjust timer for engaged sessions by selecting the number of seconds. A session becomes an “engaged session“ if it lasts longer than a certain amount of time. The default threshold for engagement time is 10 seconds but can be adjusted here. Learn more About Analytics sessions.
3. Click Save.

Override cookie settings

Change how long cookies last and how they're updated. You can override your Google first-party cookie settings. Learn more about cookies and user identification.

Google tags use first-party cookies for various purposes. These cookies have default expiration and update settings, but you can customize these settings by overriding them.

1. Click the checkbox to override the default expiration and update settings of cookies used for analytics purposes.
2. Set how long before analytics cookies expire. Cookie expiration time will be the current time when the cookie is set or updated plus the value of this field. Learn more about cookie expiration.
3. Under “Cookie update” choose:
   1. Set cookie expiration time relative to the most recent visit: By default, each time a user visits your site, your Google tags update the expiration date of associated cookies, extending the cookie lifetime relative to the user's most recent visit.
   2. Set cookie expiration time relative to first visit: You can optionally set your cookie expiration time relative to your users’ first visit, in which case the expiration is set once and never updated. Learn more about cookie update.
4. Click Save.

Set consent mode override

The 'Set consent mode override' setting overrides any default consent settings in your website code and instead sets the default to 'denied' for all the regions you choose. After a consent signal is received, the consent setting is updated to the end user's consent choice.

For example, assume you set the default consent to 'denied' in your website code only for France, and then set the consent mode override to 'denied' only for Germany. The setting will override all the default commands set in your website code and only set the default command to 'denied' for Germany.

The setting is useful when setting up consent mode via one of Google’s integrated CMP partners to ensure consent is defaulted to denied in regions where you need this behavior. It can also help if you're having difficulty getting your existing default consent commands to take effect before your Google tags load, such as in cases where your website builder or content management platform don't allow you to specify the order in which plugins are loaded relative to one another. In this case, this setting can be used to provide certainty about the default settings that apply to the tag you're configuring.

To use the setting, you must set Manage default consent settings to "No. Do not automatically mark this data as consented."

This setting applies only to the destination tags connected to the container for which it's configured, so it's critical that you configure it for each Google tag on your website if you have other tags, or you load an intermediary Google tag in your Google Tag Manager container to send data.

Manage default consent settings

Asking users for their consent to collect data is an integral part of measurement. Learn more about user consent management.

Who these settings are for

This Google tag setting lets you set a default consent setting if:

• You don’t use consent mode
• Your Google tags are prevented from loading until a user interacts with your consent banner

If you already use consent mode, the Google tag default settings aren’t applied to your tags. Instead:

• If you use consent mode and don’t engage in personalized advertising, you don’t need to take any action.
• If you use consent mode and rely on ad personalization capabilities, implement consent mode version 2.

Set a default consent state

• If your website or app operates independently of user consent requirements (for example, if you don't use consent mode) or if you've already implemented consent mode, select No. Do not automatically mark this data as consented.
• If you prevent your tags from loading till users have given consent, then all data transmitted to Google will be consented. By selecting Yes. Automatically mark this data as consented, you confirm that all data sent to Google is post consent and should be labeled as consented.

If you upload data from other sources to Google, you need to label that data with user consent as well.

Notes: 

• If you are sending data to all your destinations via a connected Google tag, this section will be empty and settings configured in the Google tag will apply.
• Any destinations you added directly to the Google tag on your website instead of Google Tag Manager won't appear in this section.

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External account links

When connecting a destination to your Google Tag Manager container with a destination tag, you can also choose to provide an External account link.

External account link allows admins to access the Google Tag Manager container and its settings directly from a destination product. It also allows admins to provide access for users in the destination product to the Tag Manager container.

You can add an external account link by one of these methods:

• If you use the optimization wizard, you will notice an option to set up the external account link. You will need to be an admin on both the destination product and the Tag Manager container to set this up. The linking process will default to providing Read access to the container for users in the destination product as the option. You can choose to update this.
• In "Admin" settings
  1. In Tag Manager, navigate to Admin  External Account Links.
  2. To add a new external account link, click on Add Link and choose the right destination account.
  3. Select Edit to update default permissions or remove an external account link.
• From the "Settings" tab
  1. In the "Settings" tab, you will notice a column called “External Account Link” with the status for your destination.
  2. If you don’t have an external account link for that destination, hover over “Not linked”, and select Add Link.