After being sick for almost a week and some real life stuffs later, I finally took the leap to set up Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics 4 for this site.
GTM setup and learning definitions
Starting with GTM, I originally thought you should finish one before GA4, not realizing that the set up requires frequent back and forth between the two. With a YouTube tutorial from AnalyticsMania, I made an account and container for this website. Nothing too difficult here. I glanced upon the workspace, and a pop-up shows the tutorial on how to install GTM on your site.
I need to insert the code snippet on both the head and body of every page, but thankfully the Site Kit plugin made the process easy. Next step requires me to check whether the installation was successful, also easily done due to Tag Assistant extension.
Now I need to learn the main building blocks of GTM. Tags are code snippets provided by various teams (analytics, marketing, and support vendors) to help with integration between website and apps. Trigger is a condition you set so the tag will fire, which can be clicks, form submissions, or page loads. Variable is a placeholder that can be used to define the criteria for when a trigger will fire or to capture dynamic event values that are used by tags.
I’ll be honest, that was quite a lot when I finished reading! But to paraphrase AnalyticsMania, tag is what do you want to do, trigger is when do you want to do it, and variable is what/when/how exactly. That was much simpler!
At this point, the tutorial jumped to the GA4 part, so I followed along.
GA4: First Foray and linking to GTM
The process looks similar to GTM, I have to create an account. After that, the next step is to create property. Just need to fill name, location, and currency. Then, business details. I chose other for the industry (I’m unsure which to choose for a portfolio site) and small for the business size. Completed that step, now I need to choose business objectives. I chose traffic and leads, not following the tutorial due to difference in the available options.
Last step is data collection. I want to take it one step at a time, so I chose web. The process is simple, only requiring website URL and data stream name. Now I have the stream details on display. The measurement ID is the most important information here.
I move over to GTM to finish the setup. I clicked Tags on left hand menu, selected New to create my first ever tag. For tag configuration, I have to choose Google Analytics, and then select Google Tag. Add the measurement ID from before to the tag ID field, then choose Initialization – All Pages as the Trigger, before finally saving the set up.
New changes needs to be verified, so I clicked on the Preview button on GTM. A tab pops-out, added the site’s URL, and hit Connect. Another tab pops-out, now I check. With the tag assistant extension connected, I head over to Container Loaded on the left hand menu. The tags fired, it was a success!
But alas, this is just the start of many challenges ahead. To be continued in the next part!
Leave a Reply