Google Tag Manager for Campaign Tracking

Overview

Google Tag Manager is a powerful tool that makes it possible to generate and manage analytics for a wide variety of tools and campaigns. For instance:

• Paid search campaigns
• Social media campaigns
• Integration with other publisher tools such as Chartbeat, Quantcast and MailChimp

One way to think about Google Tag Manager is that it will enable you to collect more detailed information about every click on your website. This might include PDF downloads, video plays or the addition of an item to a shopping cart.

Google Tag Manager also allows you to collect additional analytics data. For instance, you could use it to track scroll depth (how far down into an article do users read) or JavaScript programs like those that generate a “thank you” message without loading a separate page.

To implement Google Tag Manager on your site, you’ll need someone who understands JavaScript code and is comfortable editing it on your page templates. But if you can get sufficient technical support, Google Tag Manager will make it much easier to manage and track multiple campaigns. It will also enable you to collect additional kinds of data on user behavior on your website.

Resources on Migrating to Google Tag Manager

• https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gtagjs/migration
• https://www.distilled.net/resources/a-beginners-guide-to-google-tag-manager/
• https://www.jeffalytics.com/google-tag-manager-tutorial/
• https://www.troyfawkes.com/switching-to-google-tag-manager-for-google-analytics/

- by Medill/Northwestern Prof. Rich Gordon for INN