Get started with Tag Manager

Considerations before you install

To save time and confusion, here are some things to consider before you begin your Google Tag Manager implementation.

Account management

When you first set up a Tag Manager account, put a strategy in place for who will manage the account over the long term, and to define how account ownership will be handled should a member of your team change roles.

Have a strategy that will help to ensure that if someone leaves your organisation and their account credentials are terminated, the organisation will maintain access to your Tag Manager account. Some organisations delegate administrator roles to multiple users. Others create a dedicated master Google Account just for Tag Manager administration for their organisation. Choose the system that works best for you.

Set up one Tag Manager account per organisation. The organisation for which the tags will be managed should create the Tag Manager account. For example, if an agency manages tags on behalf of your company, then your company should create the Tag Manager account and add the agency's Google account as a user.

Agencies can manage their clients' existing accounts in the admin section of Tag Manager. Multiple users can manage the same Google Tag Manager account, and each user can be given different access permissions by the account administrators. 360 customers can add and control additional containers using zones.

Multiple web domains

The best practice is to set up one container per web domain. However, if the user experience and tags on a website span more than one domain, it's best to set up a single container that serves all the domains involved. Here are a few considerations:

  • Configurations can't easily be shared across containers without using container export and import, or by using the API. If the tags and firing logic is similar across domains, use a single container.
  • When someone publishes a container, all changes go live, regardless of domain. If you need to apply changes to one domain without affecting other domains, use a different container for each domain.

Learn more about cross-domain measurement.

Consider what tags you'll need and where to deploy them

The best practice for every Tag Manager implementation should be to start with an analytics strategy and tag implementation plan. Identify all the tags that you've deployed on your existing site or app. For new projects, identify the kinds of tags that you'll need.

Think about what information you want to collect and determine if there are additional tags that you want to deploy. If the data that you want to collect isn't available, refer to the developer documentation for information on how to pass additional data to tags.

If all of your tags fire as pages load, and each page has a unique URL, a basic container implementation is sufficient. If your tag firing scenarios are more complex, you may want to implement a more customised container implementation. These custom solutions often implement a data layer, which is code that helps Tag Manager pass data from your site or app to your tags.

Depending on your tagging requirements, server-side tagging may be an optimal solution to improve site or device performance, and enhance data quality and security. Learn more about client-side tagging vs server-side tagging.

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