Why Google Tag Manager?

Main advantages:
1. Easy installation.
Only one code (container) on all pages of the site.
2. Smart tracking.
Collection the information you need online thanks to customizable rules and macros.
3.Speed ​​of settings.
With built-in templates for codes, the speed of setting up new ones is increased.
marketing tools at any time.
Google Tag Manager is completely free.

What else is Google Tag Manager good for?

Ease of use with the tool. No coding or programming knowledge required.
The ability to customize user access.
Checking for errors. Preliminary checking of the loaded codes and their debugging.
Installing web analytics systems through the google tag despatcher.
Allows you to simplify the procedure for installing web analytics on a website.
The code management system installs one code on all pages of the site, instead of many. There is no longer any need to change, add or delete something on the site.

How Google Tag Manager can simplify daily work with client site codes.

Adding and configuring codes.
Inserting the manager tag code into the site.
Selecting and adding tags to the container.
Enabling the rule so that the tag works on all pages.
Support for tags from other services.
Tracking events.

How to get started with Google Tag Manager.
1. On the page http://google.com/tagmanager?hl=ru create new account or enter the existing one.
Fill in all the fields and click the create button.

Who should create an account?
Most the best option create an account for the client and add an agency or manager as a user with the necessary access.
If there is a need to simplify the work for the client, you can create an account yourself and give admin access to the client.
How many accounts and containers do I need to create?
1. One account for one user
2. One container for one site

To understand how many tags are on your resources, install the extension for google chrome Tag Assistant (by Google)

Go to Chrome Browser Settings - Extensions. At the bottom of the page: more extensions. Type the name of the plugin in the search box.
Click install.
Tag Assistant plugin will give you information; what tags are currently installed on the site.
2. Copy the code and paste it into each page of the site. Place it directly after the opening tag .
Check the correctness of the code insertion into the site. Reload the web page.
Use the Chrome Tag Assistant extension to see the tag manager visibility on your site.

Adding a tag to the container Google analytics.

On the "tags" page, click on the "Create" button

Product selection: Google Analytics

Choosing a tag type: Universal Analytics

Tag Setup: Copy and Add Tracking ID

We put a tick in the check-box "enable functions for the display network"

Refresh the site and check through the plugin that the code worked correctly.

A quick check of the site and Google Analytics settings.

With this tool, you can record user clicks on your site and evaluate the correctness of your Analytics code implementation. Use this information to determine if there are design issues with your site and if you are getting all the data you need. Google Tag Assistant Recordings also supports tag validation in other Google products such as Google Ads, Campaign Manager and Tag Manager.

Website design problems

By recording user transitions, you get information about whether they are having difficulty doing so, for example:

• Landing pages do not match the ads or links that users clicked on.
• Calls to action are not immediately visible.
• Page layout or site navigation makes it difficult for users to achieve the goals you want.

Problems with Google Analytics settings

If you make mistakes in your Google Analytics settings, not all the data you need is transferred to this service. By recording user transitions, you can see which tags are triggered and how the data they collect is processed in Analytics.

The inaccuracy of the transmitted data can negatively affect the conduct of your business, as it will be difficult for you to make effective and reasonable decisions. Plus, you run the risk of missing out on promising opportunities.

Analytics automatically conducts regular diagnostics of resources, but it has certain limitations, for example:

• The data already collected is checked, which does not allow filtering out inaccurate information from the very beginning.
• You cannot scan pages that require authentication or login with a password, or are displayed dynamically (for example, during an online purchase).
• This check does not take into account the structure of the site and how users navigate between pages.
• Diagnostics show whether the problem has been fixed only after collecting and processing a sufficient amount of data. During this time, you may accumulate even more unreliable information.

Google Tag Assistant Recordings has no such restrictions.

How Google Tag Assistant Recordings works

This function is part Google extensions Tag Assistant for Chrome browser... It can be used to register tags, events, and interactions for any sequence of visited pages or sites. Google Tag Assistant Recordings can record information about all pages that the user has opened, even if some of them are outside your main domain.

For example, it is common for a user to first search for a product on the Internet and then come to your site through a paid ad or link in organic search results. He examines the catalog, adds the desired product to the cart (which may be on a different domain), verifies the order, specifies billing information and shipping address, clicks the "Checkout" button and returns to the thank you page, where the achieved conversion is recorded.

When you have Google Tag Assistant Recordings enabled, information is recorded about all pages, including those that are not part of your site or are dynamically generated (for example, the order view page in the shopping cart). A series of tests are run for each page and a report is generated at the end. It includes only data related to your actions. The actions of other users are not counted.

Once you save the recording, you can rerun it with different settings in your Analytics account to track the results of these changes. In this case, you do not need to repeat the steps performed during recording. In this way, you can check and refine the settings in real time.

When you reanalyze, hit records are not passed to Google Analytics. Troubleshoot and experiment with settings without affecting your data.

WITH using google Tag Assistant Recordings can check tags not only on Google products, but also on third-party sites.

Google Tag Assistant Recordings reports

There are two reports available in Google Tag Assistant Recordings:

Tag Assistant Report

This report contains information about all tags that were activated on the pages you visited during the recording session. These can be Google tags (for example, Google Analytics tracking codes, Google Tag Manager and Campaign Manager remarketing tags) or third-party sources. The latter can include or manage Google tags.

Google Analytics Report

This report shows how the saved data will look after being processed with the current Google Analytics settings. Any resources and views are available to check the Analytics site and code. You can also make changes to the Analytics settings and repeat the analysis to check and adjust them.

Who is this tool for?

Google Tag Assistant Recordings has been designed for two main groups of users:

For marketers. Analytics-based decision makers can use Google Tag Assistant Recordings to quickly check site and Analytics interactions at current settings.

For developers. Professionals who create and tag web products (including Google Analytics tags) can get detailed information to help validate and troubleshoot assets.

What you need to use Google Tag Assistant Recordings

Google Tag Assistant Recordings is currently only available as part of the Google Tag Assistant Chrome extension.

Restrictions

• Unsaved data remains available only until you close the browser window or start a new recording.
• When you save a record, only Google data Analysts. The information received from the Google Tag Assistant extension is deleted along with the accompanying report, but it can be saved in PDF format and print.
• Google Tag Assistant Recordings is currently only available in English.

Confidentiality

Sessions recorded with Google Tag Assistant Recordings are only available to you. The extension does not save or track your online activities (other than the hits that are sent to Google Analytics during the analysis).

October 21, 2017

After that, it is necessary to check the correct data collection. This can be done using the tool GoogleTagAssistant.

GoogleTagAssistant- browser extension Google chrome which allows you to record a sequence of actions performed by users, supports tag analysis in many Google products - AdWords,DoubleClick,... It also helps you track if your code was installed correctly, and find and fix problems that could lead to data corruption in Analytics assets and views.

Distinguishing valid data from invalid data can be challenging. As a rule, it takes a lot of time, money, and effort to identify and eliminate errors in the work of the site. Google Analytics is a powerful web analytics tool that has own service troubleshooting and error diagnostics. In the course of work, the following is checked:

• the presence of the tracking code on all pages and the correctness of its configuration;
• the presence of anomalies in the configuration, for example, purposes for which conversions suddenly ceased to be registered;
• correct registration of e-commerce data.

A solution is offered for each problem. This data is displayed in the upper right corner ( bell icon).

Google Analytics Alerts

But Analytics has a number of limitations:

• only after collecting primary data is diagnostics possible, and it is not possible to filter out inaccurate information in advance;
• Analytics need a certain amount of data to identify problems and errors on the site. The more data, the more inaccurate information can accumulate (see paragraph above);
• Analytics cannot crawl pages that require authentication or password login;
• Analytics does not always crawl dynamic pages (URLs containing the "?" Character) correctly.

It is in such situations that the function comes to the rescue GoogleTagAssistant Recordings (GTAR), which allows you to register tags and interactions for any sequence of visited pages or sites, and those pages that the user opened, even if some of them are located outside the main domain.

This is often encountered when a user is redirected from a website page to an online payment service. Whether you have an online store of goods with e-commerce or a selling site with video courses - most often, a user needs to go to a payment site to pay for an order. In this case, Google Analytics will create an additional session, which will lead to data corruption. The solution to this problem will be to add the payment site domain to the excluded referral source.

Besides, TagAssistant allows you to quickly identify pages that do not have the Google Analytics code installed. You no longer need to manually check the site and look through all the data in search of the missing page. GTAR can perform tag validation not only on other Google products, but also on third-party sites.

Another common problem is the error "Page took a long time to send pageview hit to Analytics"... It occurs when the page is loading for a long time. If it takes too long to open, the Google Analytics code is in the part of the page that did not load, and the user has already closed it, then the request will not be registered or will be transmitted with a delay, which will also affect the statistics in the reports.

There are other alerts Google Tag Assistant Recordings and how to troubleshoot. You can read the information in the official Google Help. Let's now go directly to installing this extension.

• Follow the link
• Installing the extension

Google Tag Assistant extension

• After installation, in the right corner, we activate our extension by selecting the tags that we want to track, as well as which pages are checked (all or selected):

Configuring Tag Assistant Tracking

Google analytics- tracking code GA-, UA-, and Global Site Tag;

GoogleTrustedStores- this is free program certification of online stores. Owners of these sites receive a special badge (displayed in Shopping campaigns on search), which shows that customers are positive about the store, find it reliable, appreciate the quality of the service and confirm the delivery guarantee. Available in the UK, France, Germany, Australia and Japan at the time of writing;

Google Trusted Stores for Online Stores

AdWords Conversion Tracking / Remarketing- conversions and Google AdWords remarketing tag;

Floodlight- a feature for DoubleClick Campaign Manager (DCM) that allows advertisers to track and generate reports on conversions - actions of users visiting the page after viewing or clicking on an ad;

DFA / DFP (DoubleClick for Advertisers (DFA), DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP))- a comprehensive platform for displaying ads;

Google Publisher Tags (GPT)- An ad tag library that allows you to create dynamic ad queries for DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP).

• Leave everything unchanged and click Done.
• In the results, you will see a message stating that Google Tag Assistant is not active (disabled). To activate it, click on Enable:

Tag Assistant activation

• Then you need to reload the page for the information to be displayed in Google Tag Assistant. The icon can change color and show different numbers depending on which tags are detected.

Detected tags on the site page

• green- no errors were found in the tag;
• blue- tag posted with minor errors. Also, this color marks tips for optimizing tags;
• yellow- placement can lead to unforeseen consequences;
• Red — critical error... Such a tag can malfunction and lead to corruption or loss of data in your reports.

Only the Universal Analytics code is installed on my site. The tag is working correctly. If Tag Assistant does not find the Google Analytics code on the page, it will issue the following alert:

Tag not found

For more information on a tag, just click on it:

Tags on the page

Will display detailed information(using my Google Analytics example):

UA tag data

Note: the second tag UA-1410476 on my site is displayed on all pages with material publications where the Disqus plugin is present. It is used by developers to track user comments. The UA code is automatically embedded in the plugin's iframe, so you don't need to do anything with it.

• Metadata- tab with basic data on the tag (meter number, version and protocol)
• Code snippet- displays the entire counter code on this page
• Cookies- cookie information on my session
• PageviewRequests Is the number of requests to view a specific page
• Events- events on this page

The green circle shows the number of actions performed at a given time. All of them are passed to Google Analytics. "Falling" inside the event, you can see the category of the event. V this case this is New Visitor - a new visitor.

New Visitor Event

You can go back using the arrow at the top of the screen:

Return to the previous step

There are 4 more elements above it, which should also be mentioned: a funnel - an asterisk - a gear and a menu in the form of three dots.

Funnel – Show/ Hide tags

We can manually select only the tags we need to display, and hide the rest. This is done as follows:

Depending on showing / hiding an element opposite the tag, press the "cross" or "plus":

Hide tag in Tag Assistant

Excluded tags will be highlighted in gray. To hide them, you must click on the icon at the top:

Hidden tags

Asterisk - Add to favorites

Any domain, including a competitor, can be added to the favorites list so that Tag Assistant can then analyze scripts downloaded from a specific page for any tags in the background. This function can be used for those pages that do not have errors or, on the contrary, that require increased attention. In the settings you can add

To do this, just activate the asterisk on the page you need.

Add to favourites

The list of all favorite domains / pages can be found in the extension's settings.

Gear - Settings

When you click on this icon, we get to the main settings of this extension.

Tag Assistant settings

Here we see the My Favorites list (added to favorites), as well as options:

• Ignoreexternalscripts- ignore external scripts;
• Recording:FollowLinksAcrossTabs- if the checkbox is checked, then during recording, Tag Assistant will track the transitions between tabs;
• Autoopenrecordingsreportwhenrecordingisstopped- when the recording is stopped, the received report will automatically open in a new tab.

Level of detail- Level of detail

For each Google tag, you can set the verbosity level to “Off”, “Basic” or “Detail”.

• Off- tag information is not recorded;
• Basic- error reporting will be provided along with minimal tag information such as account ID;
• Detailedinformation (detailed information)- Bug reporting as well as extended troubleshooting information: full request url, full tracking script, and script source.

There are two buttons in the upper right corner. You can view all errors and detailed guides to eliminate them by clicking on « Listchecks ", as well as reset all Tag Assistant settings with the button « Resettodefault ".

Three dots menu

Tag Assistant Menu

• Show in separate tab- Tag Assistant opens in a separate browser tab;
• Recheck DOM- rechecking for support of the "W3C DOM" standards. The Document Object Model is a tool that JavaScript uses to see the content of an HTML page and the state of the browser;
• AutoValidationOFF /ON- when the parameter is disabled, Tag Assistant does not automatically analyze Google tags on the site pages;
• GADebugOFF /ON- when the debugger is disabled, Tag Assistant does not extract information from it and does not receive detailed data.

Now let's try to record the sequence of actions from entering the site through a search to purchasing / placing an order. It will look like this:

1. turn on recording with the button Record. We put a tick on Recording: Follow Links Across Tabs
2. go to the site
3. we perform the actions on it that we want to check
4. stop recording
5. analyzing the report

Enable Tag Assistant Recordings

Google Tag Assistant will start capturing and recording information after clicking the Record button. In the list of plugins, the icon will have an additional designation in the form of a red circle:

Tag Assistant Recordings enabled

Stop recording and View recording

We choose Show Full Report (Show entire report) or continue recording (Resume Recording) :

View the full Tag Assistant report

Tag Assistant Report and Google Analytics Report

In the report, you can see the entire path of the user, identify errors made during work of Google Analytics or any other Google tag, and take additional steps to eliminate them.

Note: Chrome extensions are automatically disabled in incognito mode, so data on user actions in Tag Assistant is not recorded.

• Vk.com -

After implementing the Google Analytics tracking code or configuring it through Google Tag Manager, you need to organize a validation of the collected data.

Various tools can be used for this. To check the correctness of the tags of their systems, Google has created its own tool - Google Tag Assistant, which is installed as a plug-in to the browser. I will consider how the plugin works in the Chrome browser.

After installation, a new one will appear in the list of plugins icons, when you click on it with the left mouse button, the following window will open:

Here you need to select the tags of which systems you plan to check (track), as well as which pages are checked all or selected. After specifying the parameters you need, save the settings by clicking on the Done button.

You will see a message that Google Tag Assistant is not active (disabled) on the current page and you can enable it:

To enable, you must click Enable (about the ability to record, the Record button, we'll talk below).

After enabling the plugin, you need to reload the page so that information about it is displayed in Google Tag Assistant, or go to the next one. Regardless of the action, the next time Google Tag Assistant will “collect” the necessary information and it will become available for viewing. At the same time, additional information will appear in the list of plugins for Google Tag Assistant in the form of the number of tags found on the current page:

Google Tag Assistant - number of tags

If you left-click on this icon, a window will appear:

In which the tags will be displayed. It should be noted that the color of the icon next to the tag may be different and depends on the results of its work:

• green - if the tag worked correctly;
• blue - if there are no critical comments;
• red - serious errors are present.

What else you need to pay attention to in this window. It can be divided into two blocks - the first is a list of tags on the page, the second (lower part) hints or tips that lead to the official documentation and are designed to help in solving problems or errors.

In the upper right part of the window, information about the total number of tags on the page is displayed, and if there are errors, their number:

It is possible that the tags will not be found on the page, in which case the information looks like this:

To get detailed information about the tag of interest, just click on it in the list:

Detailed information on the tag will be displayed (for example, Google Analytics):

What you need to pay attention to. The first is the way to implement Google Analytics, in the screenshot it is Implemented in Google Tag Manager, i.e. via Google Tag Manager, second for the number of hits that were sent by the tag before you opened this window:

The hit type is displayed here, for example Events and the number of hits of that type (1 in a green circle).

After choosing the type of hit, you "dive" into the list of hits of the selected type (of course, if there are several of them), where you can find out the information that was transferred to Google Analytics:

To move between hits, as well as to return to the list of all hits, use the controls:

Remember at the beginning I mentioned the Records button? It is necessary to record tags on pages and other information so that you do not view it every time on the page, but click on links within the site, and then study the collected information for each page. To use this report, open the Google Tag Assistant window and click the Record button. You will see a warning:

Read the information, if necessary, activate the switch to track the transitions between tabs. Click Cancel recording button to end recording.

Now, after reloading the page or clicking on the link on it, Google Tag Assistant will start capturing and recording information. In the list of plugins, the Google Tag Assistant icon will have an additional designation in the form of a red circle, which indicates that the recording option is active:

You navigate through the pages, Google Tag Assistant records information. If you need to end the recording or review the recorded information, open the Google Tag Assistant window and select the desired action at the bottom of the page:

Before viewing the information, a message is displayed:

You are given the option to view the Show full report or resume / resume Resume recordind. To view the report, you will need to log in to Google.

The information is displayed in a separate browser tab and is divided into two blocks:

Google Tag Assistant report and Google Analytics information. Further work depends on which option you have chosen and appearance pages. By studying various parameters, you can identify errors and inaccuracies made when implementing Google Analytics. There are tons of options and information available:

Use Google Tag Assistant when implementing and configuring Google Analytics, but do not forget that it is better to use not one, but several tools that will complement each other in helping you solve current problems.

No problem. There is one way how this can be done. Although now it only works on some devices. In general, the transfer of the assistant to other Android devices with version Marshmallow and higher is already in the process. In the meantime, you can use Google app Allo. Rumor has it that Google is still working on the interface. However, OnePlus recently announced that Google assistant will be compatible with OnePlus smartphones 3 and OnePlus 3T.

What is Google Assistant?

Through the Allo app, you can use the Google Assistant to, say, find directions or find restaurants you want. To do this, you just need to call your Google account and use the services of an assistant. Also with the help of Google Assistant, you can create reminders, find out the flight schedule and do many other things.

Other options for getting an assistant

Previously on smartphones (other than Google pixel) with Android 5.0 Lollipop and above, you could get Google Assistant using the installation APK file alpha version of Google App. However, now this method is irrelevant, so it doesn't even make sense to try. Hopefully Google will soon expand the list of smartphones that support Assistant. In the meantime, we advise our readers to pay attention to Google Allo.

What do you think of Google's assistant? Have you tried installing it on your device? Share your experience in the comments.