In the last years I have worked with many different companies to support them with implementing Enhanced Ecommerce.

I can say it’s definitely not an easy implementation and you will probably face many challenges along the way. But, it’s all worth it!

The Google Analytics implementation and configuration audit usually reveals a lot of gaps within the Enhanced Ecommerce setup.

And in this blogpost I will discuss 15 of those issues that I come across regularly.

Quick note that you can find other related articles here.

Table of Contents

• Strategic Issues
• Google Analytics Issues
• Google Tag Manager Issues
• Data Layer Issues
• Debugging Issues

Issue #1: No Time Invested in Background of Enhanced Ecommerce (Strategic)

I strongly recommend to dig through several resources (online) before you try to implement anything new on your website.

This is especially true for modules like Enhanced Ecommerce.

You will have a much higher risk to go wrong if you skip the important resources that are already available and try to do everything on your own.

Here are three resources to check out:

• Enhanced Ecommerce Guide for Google Tag Manager. (Simo Ahava)
• Enhanced Ecommerce (UA) Developers Guide. (Google)
• Top 15 Enhanced Ecommerce Implementation Tips. (Online Metrics)

Issue #2: Not Defining the Scope of Your Project First (Strategic)

The Enhanced Ecommerce module comes with a full set of reports in Google Analytics. You can find it by navigating to Conversion > E-commerce (make sure to first enable it in Google Analytics at the view level).

You will only see meaningful data in all reports if you implement all the Enhanced Ecommerce activities shown below:

• Product Impressions
• Product Clicks
• Product Detail Impressions
• Add / Remove from Cart
• Promotion Impressions
• Promotion Clicks
• Checkout
• Purchases
• Refunds

However, the good thing is that you don’t have to do everything in one time. I actually often recommend splitting the implementation in two or sometimes even more parts.

Here is how I usually go about it (working backwards):

• Phase 1a: purchase and checkout.
• Phase 1b: add / remove from cart and product detail impressions.
• Phase 2: product clicks and impressions.
• Phase 3: rest of actions (if applicable).

Large companies – with enough development resources and knowledge – can implement phase 1a and 1b at the same time.

Note: tracking refunds can be very challenging as refunds are sometimes processed months after the initial purchase (and completely in backend).

Issue #3: Not Being Realistic About Implementation Time (Strategic)

I hope by now you understand that implementing (the entire) Enhanced Ecommerce module is not something to fix in a day.

There might be plugins out there offering some help for your specific store, but still you need some time to carefully plan everything.

Implementation time varies, but you need commitment from developers and the marketing team to get the job done. Be realistic upfront when planning out all activities and better to start collecting data one week later than collecting wrong data in your Google Analytics account.

We will talk about several Google Tag Manager issues soon, but let’s first discuss three Google Analytics configuration mistakes.

Issue #4: Not Enabling Enhanced Ecommerce (GA)

Google Analytics will only show you Enhanced Ecommerce date if you enable the correct settings at the view level.

Here is an example of the Google Demo Store:

Make sure to configure both settings as “ON”.

Issue #5a: Implementing the Wrong Checkout Steps (GA)

You have the option to implement and configure checkout details as part of the Enhanced Ecommerce module.

This requires both work on the GA as well as GTM side. The GA is the easy part, but still often goes wrong.

“In Google Analytics, you only need to define the steps that you have identified and implemented as checkout steps. And never include the purchase.”

Here is a good example from Google:

Two things to keep in mind:

• Don’t implement / configure the cart page or action as a checkout step.
• Never add the purchase to the GA Enhanced Ecommerce configuration.

Issue #5b: Not Implementing Checkout Labels (GA)

This is something you want to avoid:

Always add labels for the checkout steps that you have identified and implemented.

The Google Analytics setup part is easy; many more issues can occur in relation to GTM and the dataLayer implementation (most companies choose that implementation option).

Issue #6: Using the Wrong Universal Analytics Tag (GTM)

Create a Universal Analytics tag and set the Track Type to Transaction.

This is what you should do when you want to implement standard Ecommerce (not recommended).

You should always choose Enhanced Ecommerce, even if you only want to implement the purchase action.

For Enhanced Ecommerce, make sure to send all information either with a pageview or event tag to Analytics. And don’t forget to enable Enhanced Ecommerce features. Here you can review an example:

Issue #7: Incorrectly Applying the Non-Interaction Setting (GTM)

You need to define the “non-interaction” setting for all events that you set up via GTM.

Here is an example of tracking a “product click” action:

This is set up correctly as a “product click” is indeed an interaction that should impact (lower) the bounce rate of a particular page.

Be mindful when using events to convey EE data to Google Analytics.

“Product detail page event: a visitor lands on a product detail page and immediately leaves the website. This event – showing the product detail page – shouldn’t impact bounce rate. Non-interaction should be set to true to accommodate for this.”

Note:

• The advantage of using events to convey EE data is that debugging in Google Analytics is more easy. Also, for most of you if will be easier to apply segmentation to certain Enhanced Ecommerce actions.
• The advantage of using pageviews to convey EE data is that you don’t send extra hit to Google Analytics. Something to consider if you are close to the GA hit limit / not on a paid plan.

Issue #8: Triggering Duplicate Pageviews (GTM)

As mentioned above you can choose to send Enhanced Ecommerce data to Google Analytics via an event or pageview tag.

Maybe you want to limit the hits sent to GA and you decide to use pageviews to convey Enhanced Ecommerce data.

Here is how you can prevent this to happen in your account (two sample tags):

You will generate two pageviews for each product detail page visit if you don’t modify the GTM setup.

Therefore you need to add an exclusion trigger to the GA – Pageview – All Pages tag to prevent it from firing on a product detail page (or any other page within your Enhanced Ecommerce implementation).

The best way is to set it up on the page level so that the Exception Event matches the Trigger Event.

In the example above the duplicate pageview won’t occur as there is an exception set up on “Page View – Product Detail”. It means that only the “GA Ecommerce – Product Detail” tag will fire on PDPs.

Issue #9: Directly Using GTM to Send Product-Level Custom Dimension (GTM)

Product-scoped custom dimensions and metrics are unique in relation to Enhanced Ecommerce.

I have seen several GTM setups where these product-scoped attributes where included in a GTM tag. This won’t work though!

These are extra data points that can and should be added directly into the objects within a products array, example of Simo Ahava below.

In this example, dimension5 is in the object within the products array.

Issue #10: Sending Duplicate Transaction Data (GTM)

I have come across many cases where duplicate transactions are stored in Google Analytics.

An example (custom report) is shown below:

The screenshot above indicates there are multiple transactions captured under the same Transaction ID.

This will negatively impact many data points in Google Analytics. Google Analytics is not really capable to deduplicate transactions by itself.

Two options to solve this issue:

• Make sure the developer activates the tracking code (or dataLayer.push) one time per transaction.
• Implement a GTM solution to prevent duplicate transactions in Google Analytics.

Issue #11: Not following the right EE structure and naming conventions (Data Layer)

Here is how Enhanced Ecommerce is most often implemented:

1. Ecommerce date is pushed to the Data Layer by a developer (e.g. product detail impression, purchase etc.).
2. The Universal Analytics Tag (with Enhanced Ecommerce enabled) sends the data to Analytics (via pageview or event tag).

However, it is crucial to know that the develop needs to send the ecommerce data in the right format and use proper naming conventions.

Three rules for the “dataLayer.push”:

• An ecommerce object that contains data related to a particular funnel step / action you want to track must be present.
• The name of the action is required and should not be modified.
  • E.g. detail, add, purchase.
• Related data to a particular action should be pushed to Google Analytics.

Here is a correct (add to cart) example from Simo Ahava’s blog:

The example includes an ecommerce object, the name of the action (“add” in this case) and related (product) data to that action.

The dataLayer.push does not have to include all fields shown above, some are optional. For example, “variant” is an optional field. Ensure that the developer always uses the right names (attribute) when referring to a particular item. Otherwise, it won’t work.

Issue #12: Not Sending Product-Level Information in the Entire Funnel (Data Layer)

Consistency is really key when it comes to Enhanced Ecommerce.

Here is an example:

“The developer sends product details such as product variant and brand in a Product Detail View. In that case, you will want to send these with all other relevant actions (e.g. Add to Cart, Checkout and Purchase) as well.”

You will miss these data points on pages other than the PDP if you don’t add it to every step of the funnel.

There is very limited automatic persistence or attribution when it comes to Enhanced Ecommerce, find out more here.

Note: this post teaches you how to set up funnel tracking in GA4.

Issue #13: Unclear and Inconsistent Product Category Structure (Data Layer)

Again and as a reminder, consistency is key!

The category in traditional Ecommerce had just one layer where you could store the category information. However, within Enhanced Ecommerce, you can have five layers/levels of product category data.

Required: Send the category with every single product in all funnel steps you want to query against.

Here you can see there are potentially five product category levels you can implement.

The category to which the product belongs (e.g. Apparel). Use / as a delimiter to specify up to 5-levels of hierarchy (e.g. Apparel/Men/Shorts).

• Product Category Level 1: Apparel
• Product Category Level 2: Men
• Product Category Level 3: Shorts

And here is a quick code example:

It can be very useful, since bringing this hierarchy into your product category implementation allows you to analyze product category performance on many different levels.

Issue #14: Mixing Up Checkout and CheckoutOption (Data Layer)

Enhanced Ecommerce allows you to send multiple pieces of information in relation to the checkout:

• Checkout step.
• Checkout option.

Make sure to send the checkout option always after the corresponding checkout Step has been sent. Otherwise it won’t work!

You can use the checkout option hit to send extra information about a specific checkout step.

For example, if checkout step 3 is where the user chooses the payment method, you’ll want to send checkout step 2 when the user first lands on the payment method selection page. Then, after the user clicks or selects the payment method, you can send the checkout option hit with payment details.

Issue #15: Not Running Tests Properly (Debugging)

Many times companies implement Enhanced Ecommerce with all its features in one time and without proper testing.

I highly recommend taking a different approach and careful plan the rollout of Enhanced Ecommerce first.

Also, you really need to test before go-live. Preferably first in a testing environment and after again in the live environment. Fixing bugs in the testing environment first is crucial.

In short, take the time when rolling out Enhanced Ecommerce!

Concluding Thoughts

Enhanced Ecommerce is one of the greatest features of Google Analytics. And as you have seen, it can be a great challenge to implement correctly.

You will have a head start if you apply the learnings from this blogpost and solve the most common Enhanced Ecommerce issues.

Also, make sure to read Simo Ahava’s monster guide on Enhanced Ecommerce to keep you on the right track!

Now it’s your turn! What’s your experience with Enhanced Ecommerce? Make sure to share your tips or concerns in the comment section.

The post [Solved] 15 Most Common Enhanced Ecommerce Issues appeared first on Online Metrics.

I can remember – more than 10 years ago – I started out in Digital Marketing and soon after I dove into Analytics. No processes in place at that time, let alone that I worked with naming conventions… why should I?

Well, happily this all changed. Maybe you are employed on client- or agency-side or you are running your own company? Either way, you will want to work with naming conventions. It saves you so much time and pain in every aspect of Digital Analytics.

In this article you learn about 11 different areas in Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager where you can and should apply naming conventions.

Table of Contents

[one_half]

• #1 Account Structure (GA)
• #2 Campaign Tracking (GA)
• #3 Event Tracking (GA)
• #4 Annotations (GA)
• #5 Custom Alerts (GA)
• #6 Segments (GA) [/one_half]

[one_half_last]

• #7 Custom Reports (GA)
• #8 Tags (GTM)
• #9 Triggers (GTM)
• #10 Variables (GTM)
• #11 Folders (GTM)
• Concluding Thoughts [/one_half_last]

Ok, let’s dive right in!

1. Account Structure (GA)

As you are all probably familiar with, Google Analytics allows you to set up multiple accounts, properties and views.

Really new? Check out this support article from Google to learn more.

In my experience, most companies have one Google Analytics account, one or a few properties (e.g. web and mobile app) and multiple views.

Here is how I recommend setting up a proper account, property and view structure.

Account

Use either the “name of your organization” or “website URL” for account name. I prefer using the “name of the organization” in most cases.

Most probably you have access to several or dozens of GA accounts if you work for an agency. In that case – and if you define the account name – use either “name of organization” or “website URL”.

Property

I recommend using a number in front of the property name if you have multiple properties in your account.

Example with three different environments: production, staging and gtm (temporarily test property).

1. Production (UA-124356789-1)
2. Staging (UA-124356789-2)
3. GTM (UA-124356789-3)

This setup enables easy sorting on your properties.

Use number one for the property you access most often. You will find it on top if you do so.

Views

In my experience, most companies have set up multiple views in Google Analytics. This is a good thing!

However, there are three common issues:

• The basic view setup is incomplete.
• The views that are set up collect irreliable data
• The view name doesn’t indicate what data is collected.

This is one of the reasons why I have launched the Google Analytics Setup Mastery Course.

Here are some general recommendations:

• Use the property name in your view name (only applies if you have or expect to have multiple properties in the near future).
• Use numbers to distinguish between different reporting views.
  • Single digits are ok if you are sure not to create more than nine reporting views. (in most cases that will do)
  • Use double digits if you might create ten views or more in the future.

Further, always set up three basic views:

• 01 Master View
• 02 Test View
• 03 Raw Data View

The rest of the more specific views can follow after.

Two useful resources to learn more:

• 22 Best Practices for Optimizing Your Google Analytics Views Setup.
• Ultimate Guide to Using a Google Analytics Test View.

Note: ask your colleagues to set up a clear naming structure in the admin section if you don’t have the access rights to take care of this.

2. Campaign Tracking (GA)

Campaign tracking is probably the most critical aspect when it comes to naming conventions. Campaign analysis and optimization is all based on campaign structure and channel definitions.

In one of my previous articles I describe campaign tracking as:

“The endless process of structuring and measuring your online marketing campaigns so that you can analyze and optimize your online traffic sources and outcomes“.

An explanation of the words in bold:

• Endless process: it’s not a one-time thing, you need to do it right today and tomorrow.
• Structuring and measuring: specific parameters that you use lead all your traffic into the right channel buckets.
• Analyze and optimize: analyze and optimize specific segments of traffic.
• Channels and outcomes: spend your budget in channels that drive or have a positive ROI.

Five Parameters and Naming Conventions

Most of you will be familiar with “utm tracking” in Google Analytics.

This allows you to measure the traffic and sources in the right way. On default, Google Analytics correctly categorizes direct traffic, organic traffic and referrals.

Overview of five utm parameters and some best practices:

• utm_medium: identify a medium such as email, affiliate, cpc (highly recommended).
• utm_source: identify a source such as google, zanox, pinterest (required).
• utm_campaign: identify a campaign name such as summer_promotion (highly recommended).
• utm_term: identify the keywords that drive traffic (optional).
• utm_content: differentiate ads or links that point to the same URL (optional).

Google Analytics states that only “utm_source” is required for measuring your custom campaigns. I strongly recommend using utm_medium and utm_campaign as well.

Use the online campaign URL builder for quickly generating one or a few custom URLs.

Best Practices

• Medium comes first; start with identifying the medium for your campaign links.
• You don’t want to have hundreds of scattered mediums so set your naming conventions wisely and group the sources.
• Create your links using a spreadsheet or use the Google URL builder add-on (if you have just a few links).
• Involve every person in marketing in the campaign tracking process.
• Don’t pass any Personally Identifiable Information (PII) in a campaign tracking parameter.
• Set up Google Analytics lowercase filters on campaign parameters to automatically mitigate minor utm tracking mistakes.
• Create utm parameters and new tracking URLs prior to the launch of a new campaign. There is no way to retroactively modify the data you collect in GA.
• Review your campaign tracking procedure and spreadsheet on a quarterly basis (at a minimum).

3. Event Tracking (GA)

Event Tracking is one of the most important features in Google Analytics. It allows you to track all sorts of interactions on your website.

You can easily get lost in your data if you don’t apply the right naming conventions.

The three fields that are relevant here are:

• eventCategory
• eventAction
• eventLabel

Choose what structure and naming conventions work best in your situation, but make sure to align your different Events as much as possible.

Here is how I usually go about it:

• Event Category: name of the group of similar events you want to track.
  • Examples: Downloads, Outbound Links or YouTube Videos. Always use the “plural” form to keep your category names consistent.
• Event Action: name of the type of event you want to track for a particular element on your website.
  • Example embedded YouTube Video: play, pause, 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% or 100%.
• Event Label: name of the web page element, whose users’ interaction you want to track.
  • Example embedded YouTube Video: [Title of the video].

In addition, I recommend creating a spreadsheet for your Event Tracking structure as well. By doing this it is much easier to keep track of what is measured and where.

4. Annotations (GA)

Google Analytics annotations help you to correlate your Google Analytics data to external events.

This can be very helpful if something happens that impacts your data collection process.

Read this article for more information on how to set up annotations in Google Analytics.

In terms of naming conventions, I recommend setting a few categories that you use in front of each annotation.

Category examples:

• [Campaign] // new campaigns that start on a certain date.
• [Tech] // implementation update with a significant impact on the data.
• [Config] // configuration update with a significant impact on the data.
• [Issue] // an issue regarding the data collection, e.g. Ecommerce Tracking not working.

In addition, it is useful to set a time stamp (in accordance with Time Zone of Google Analytics view) for each annotation.

5. Custom Alerts (GA)

Custom Alerts are another great feature in Google Analytics. They help you to automatically keep track of important changes in your data.

Again, I recommend using brackets to define certain categories for your Custom Alerts.

Here is an example of a setup for one of my clients:

You can connect a Custom Alert to your email or mobile phone numbers (US). This can be a lifesaver!

Reading suggestion:

• How to Leverage Custom Alerts in Google Analytics.

6. Segments (GA)

Google Analytics segments belong to the core features of Google Analytics that I leverage for all of my clients.

I have literally mentioned this hundreds of times before, but without segmentation, you won’t get actionable insights for your business.

You will find out that you have to be careful when you set them up in Google Analytics (either via the Admin interface or directly within the reporting environment).

On default, Google Analytics applies the segment to all views in your Google Analytics account.

This can be painful especially when you are working on the agency-side. Some of the segments that you create are useful for all of your clients, but most probably some of them are unique for a client. This might happen:

“You have a client meeting and go through the segments during a demo. Then you see one of your segments popping up from the clients’ main competitor showing the clients’ name as well, whoops.”

You can imagine that this to have a negative impact on you and the relationship with your client.

Best practices:

• Don’t save client specific segments in all views, but simply apply them to “01 Master View” of the specific client (and other client views if you wish). Select the second option in the screenshot above.
• Save general segments in all views so you don’t have to re-create them every time – you will easily get lost and forget about naming conventions.
• Use [General] in front of the segment definition if you set up segments that are useful for all of your clients (accounts).
• Use [Name Client] in front of the segment definition if the segment applies to one specific client.
• Use other naming conventions strategies to uniform the setup across all accounts.
  • Uppercase/lowercase characters.
  • Active/passive form.
  • Dashes or not.
  • Etc.

It’s important to share these best practices with everyone who is involved with setting up segments for analysis, insights and optimization.

7. Custom Reports (GA)

Most often I use external tools – like Google Data Studio – when creating reports and dashboards for my clients.

However, there are still a lot of use cases when custom reports in Google Analytics come in handy.

You can create a custom report in several ways and one of them is via the Customisation > Custom Reports tab.

On default, the Custom Report is only saved under the selected view. Tick the box “All views associated with this account” instead of you want to save it in all views. This can be useful for reports that generate insights for a lot of your accounts.

You can apply similar rules as described in the last chapter about Segments. Some of you might have regular client training meetings and if so, be extra aware of using naming conventions in the right way.

8. Tags (GTM)

The majority of you will probably use both Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager, so let’s talk about GTM now.

Tags are one of the crucial parts of a GTM setup.

I always like my tags to follow a similar structure.

Here are six examples of tags in GTM:

• DoubleClick – PageView – All Pages
• Facebook – Pixel – Add to Cart
• GA Ecommerce – Product Impression
• GA Event – Email Subscribe
• GA Pageview – All Pages
• GA Virtual Pageview – Checkout

This will give you a basic idea on how you could apply naming conventions to your tags in GTM.

There is no right or wrong solution, simply stick to a structure that works for you (and your client).

9. Triggers (GTM)

I always like to keep things simple and this also applies to defining triggers.

Again, here are six examples of triggers:

• Event – Add To Cart
• Event – Checkout
• Page View – Cart
• Page View – Gallery
• Window Loaded – First Visit
• Window Loaded – First Visit – Email Visitor

You can make this much more complex, but sometimes it simply needs to be clear to the people who are working on the GTM setup now (or in the future).

That why I stick with these definitions that are clear and simple.

10. Variables (GTM)

Usually, I set up variable names in a similar way as triggers.

It should be clear what type of variable it is and where it exactly applies to.

A couple of examples to help you get started:

• Constant – GoogleAnalyticsID (type: Constant)
• DataLayer – Ecommerce (type: Data Layer Variable)
• Element – Search Result Content (type: DOM Element)
• JS – Customer Type (type: Custom JavaScript)

The last part “type:…” is just for showing the trigger type, don’t add this part to the trigger.

11. Folders (GTM)

Most folder setups in Google Tag Manager look like this:

All tags, triggers and variables are not saved in a folder.

There are several ways to store all these items properly. It depends on your organization, the type of tags, triggers and variables etc. on how to set this up.

Some general ideas are given below:

• Tag Type (e.g. folders for Google Analytics, DoubleClick, Facebook, Google Ads).
• Website section (e.g. folders for the login environment, checkout, blog).
• Respective team/person (e.g. folders that show to whom the tag, trigger or variable belongs).

Concluding Thoughts

Your Digital Analytics outcome depends on your data and naming conventions. As you hopefully realize by now, you can’t work efficiently and generate outstanding results without putting a structure in place first.

We have explored several ways of applying naming conventions, both in Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager.

I highly recommend reviewing each item carefully, applying it to your unique situation and moving on to the next. Along the way you might want to take some notes that help you later.

There is definitely more than this, but it is a great start for sure.

This is it from my side. I really hope naming conventions made it to your to-do list. What should I add to make this article even more useful?

The post 11 Ways to Leverage Naming Conventions in Google Analytics and Tag Manager appeared first on Online Metrics.

A while ago I wrote a post on Google Analytics Chrome Add-ons and now it is time to dive into Google Tag Manager add-ons and tools.

In this post I will elaborate on the best Google Tag Manager extensions that are currently out there. They can be a great help in improving your Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager setup and debugging issues more quickly.

For your convenience, I have placed direct links to all GTM add-ons below:

List of Google Tag Manager Extensions

[one_half]

• 1. Google Tag Assistant
• 2. Tag Manager Injector
• 3. WASP
• 4. Da Vinci Tools
• 5. GTM Sonar
• 6. GTM Tools
• 7. DataLayer Inspector+
• 8. DataLayer Checker [/one_half]

[one_half_last]

• 9. SelectorGadget
• 10. Copy CSS Selector
• 11. GTM Code Editor
• 12. GTM Variable Builder
• 13. GTM Variable Inserter
• 14. GTM dataLayer Sifter
• 15. GTM Debug
• 16. customTask Builder [/one_half_last]

1. Google Tag Assistant

Tag Assistant can be used to create, validate, diagnose, and troubleshoot your Analytics data on each of your pages. Once you create a recording and detect a problem, you can check again to verify whether your tags are firing correctly following a fix.

Learn more about it in the Google Analytics Help Center.

Need more help to get started? Watch the videos below:

Validating Google Analytics Implementations with Tag Assistant

Learn About Google Tag Assistant Recordings

2. Tag Manager Injector

Tag Manager Injector is a great tool for debugging and testing Google Tag Manager implementations. It greatly simplifies the process of inserting GTM code on any site where no Tag Manager container code is implemented or where you don’t have access to.

Very useful in different scenarios:

1. When preparing and testing a GTM container before you have access to the clients GTM and/or GTM is implemented on the site.
2. When teaching a group of people on how to use GTM.
3. When I got asked for help to track a specific element on a website. I can simply play around with a demo GTM account and test the setup first.

Read this article to learn more about how to effectively use Tag Manager Injector.

3. WASP

WASP is another useful Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager extension and is embedded in the “Developer Console”.

This application can be very useful in exploring and debugging GA and GTM tracking issues. Further, it allows you to debug a ton of other tracking scripts.

At first it can be a bit challenging to work with. So make sure to practice enough.

Read about the features of WASP and how it can help you and your organization.

4. Da Vinci Tools

Da Vinci Tools is another great Google Tag Manager tool and add-on. It comes with a solid set of Google Analytics features as well.

It makes your life a lot easier when working with GTM.

5. GTM Sonar

GTM Sonar is the first out of two Google Tag Manager tools of Tag Manager expert Simo Ahava that are discussed here.

I have found this extension very useful when debugging the standard Google Tag Manager listeners.

6. GTM Tools

GTM Tools are not a Google Tag Manager Chrome extension, but a Google Sheets add-on instead.

Simo’s tool lets you manage and update your Google Tag Manager containers, tags, triggers, and variables.

It can save you a tremendous amount of time instead of trying to do everything directly in the GTM web interface!

7. DataLayer Inspector+

The Google Tag Manager dataLayer Inspector + is a fantastic Google Tag Manager extension!

You can do a ton of things with this Chrome add-on and find out:

• What is pushed to the Google Tag Manager dataLayer?
• What is sent to Google Analytics?
• When are these pushes happening?
• Are there issues?

Analytics Pros has recently embedded some great, new features you should check out.

Further, the “Insert GTM Container” feature makes the Tag Manager Injector obsolete which is great as you can limit the number of add-ons to use.

8. DataLayer Checker

DataLayer Checker is perfect for those of you who want to debug and check the dataLayer implementations without having to use the browser console!

This GTM extension is great for debugging a basic DataLayer, but I recommend trying DataLayer Inspector+ if your needs grow!

9. SelectorGadget

CSS selectors can be very helpful when setting up triggers in GTM.

Check out Selector Gadget if you find yourself setting up these trigger types very often.

It is an open source Chrome Extension that makes CSS selector generation and discovery on complicated sites a breeze. Want to save time? This extension is for you!

10. Copy CSS Selector

Copy CSS Selector is an alternative for CSS selector generation.

Try them both and see which one works best for you.

11. GTM Code Editor

GTM Code Editor allows you to use a code editor inside of GTM to edit and debug your HTML tags.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

12. GTM Variable Builder

GTM Variable Builder can be very useful if you are not familiar with DOM variables. You can easily create Custom JavaScript variables and retrieve values of particular website elements.

13. GTM Variable Inserter

GTM Variable Inserter is a very handy Google Tag Manager extension if you often work with variables.

The GTM Variable Inserter lets you easily access your existing Variables in a Custom HTML tag. Simply right click to see the available Variables and choose to insert the {{Variable}} in that place.

14. GTM dataLayer Sifter

GTM dataLayer Sifter allows you to find DOM elements and their values within the Data Layer fast.

It can be used to search a particular event in the Data Layer for a DOM element to be used in Google Tag Manager.

Watch this awesome video to learn more:

15. GTM Debug

A new extension, GTM Debug by David Vallejo. It’s a promising Chrome add-on to debug GA and GTM implementations.

It was released in July and everyone – including me – is very positive so far!

Current features:

• View all dataLayer pushes
• Copy dataLayer details to clipboard in a formatted way
• View the current dataLayer model details for each dataLayer push
• View all Universal Analytics Hits sent by pages
• Filter the hits by their type and property ids
• View the Enhanced Ecommerce Data in a visual and sortable way, no more wasting of time trying to decryp the hit payloads
• Check the hit payload size, type, method and if it’s contains any Enhanced Ecommerce data without needing to dig around the request headers and payload.

Go check it out!

16. customTask Builder

The last and just released Google Tag Manager tool comes from Simo Ahava again, the customTask Builder.

A fantastic add-on for those of you with more advanced skills of GTM and/or willing to experiment with the customTask Builder.

In short:

“You can use the customTask Builder tool to create a customTask script. customTask is a method of the Google Analytics library, which lets you run JavaScript code when the hit request to Google Analytics is being built.”

You can build a “customTask” that combines multiple features at once, incredibly powerful!

It is a fantastic tool if you want to learn more about customTask and how to leverage it for your business.

This is it from my side. What Google Tag Manager extensions did I miss? Happy to hear your thoughts!

The post Top 16 Google Tag Manager Extensions Worth Trying Out appeared first on Online Metrics.

This is when the Google Tag Manager Injector deserves a place in your GTM Chrome extensions toolbox!

On default Google Tag Manager requires you to implement the container tag before you can start your job.This guide reveals a step-by-step process to implement and leverage the GTM injector extension for Chrome so that you have no excuse anymore to postpone your GTM implementation or learning!

The Google Tag Manager Injector

The free Chrome Google Tag Manager Injector will make you transition to Google Tag Manager even quicker. I have already revealed how you can quickly set up a basic GTM implementation in an earlier post so I won’t walk through that this time.

“The GTM Injector extension helps you to preview a GTM container on your site without needing to add any JavaScript to your pages.”It means you have much more time to test your GTM configuration in advance.

In the upcoming paragraphs I will describe this process by a real life example where I combine GTM with the basics of Google Analytics.

Step 1: Download the GTM Injector

First of all you need to get the GTM Injector extension:

Download it here.

The reviews are raving, but the number of people that are using it are still rather low. In my opinion it’s a missed opportunity for sure!

Step 2: Create GTM Account and Container

I will showcase the website of Amazon.com in my example.

Create a Google account if you don’t have one yet and head over to Google Tag Manager.

The following pop-up will appear After you hit Create:

Here we go: GTM-5FTLPT is the container ID that you need.

We use this container ID in the next step.

Step 3: Set Up the Tag Manager Injector

By now you have installed the extension and set up your GTM account.

Now it’s time to connect the extension to the corresponding ID and go to preview mode in GTM.

1. Go into your GTM account and select preview mode.
2. Fill in GTM container ID and domain name (Amazon.com) in Tag Manager Injector.
3. Hit “START” button.

It allows you to experiment with GTM and Amazon.com! :-)

You can do this on any other website you like. Just make sure to insert the domain name and GTM container ID before you proceed.

GTM’s preview and debug mode operates fine when using Google Tag Manager Injector. It allows you to test out container configurations as normal. Head over to the Help Centre for detailed instructions on GTM preview and debug mode.

Step 4: Set Up a Google Analytics Account

I will take it one step further. Let’s set up a Google Analytics account as well.

Now I need to go back to GTM to set up Google Analytics.

Step 5: Set Up Google Analytics Variable and Tag

It’s not a real need here, but I set up a variable for my Google Analytics tracking ID first.

And I want the Google Analytics tag to be fired on every page (if applicable, set anonymizeIp to “true” because of GDPR legislation):

Step 6: Test Your Setup

First of all I will review my setup:

Everything looks good for this basic setup.

Let’s do a test! Head over to the “Camera & Photo” category on Amazon.com:

The GA pageview tag is fired correctly.

Use Google Analytics real-time (or another GA debugging tool) to check whether the data is being sent to Google Analytics:

Bingo, the Amazon pageview is sent to Google Analytics!

This is just a basic example, but I hope that you realize how powerful this Google Tag Manager Injector is!

Why to Use Google Tag Manager Injector

Here are five use cases to make this Chrome extension incredibly useful:

1. Prepare implementations/configurations in advance. Every business wants things to be done quickly. Unfortunately IT is not always as quick as we all want. This is a great solution to win time! You have all the tags, triggers and variables in place even before the GTM container tag is implemented!
2. Enhance your learning of GTM without having an actual website. This is really great when you are just starting out learning about Google Tag Manager. You can greatly surprise your potential employer by preparing a well-thought-out implementation for their website in addition to showing your resume. :-)
3. Use the extension in your GTM training sessions. Especially useful if you don’t want to reveal your website data or data from your clients.
4. Convince a potential client of your skills with real-live data/actions. Showing your skills is what really sells.
5. Refrain from screwing up your real account with tons of mistakes first. Most people need to test their tags, fine-tune them etc. before everything is working properly. This extension really helps if you are aiming for a clean account. You could set up a test account first before migrating the setup to the live account.

What are your thoughts on the Tag Manager Injector? Do you already use it or plan to use it after reading this article? As always I am happy to hear your opinion!

The post Quickly Implement Google Analytics via Google Tag Manager Injector appeared first on Online Metrics.

Google Tag Manager can be daunting at first. Tags, triggers, variables… yeah, I hear you thinking. After reading this guide you know exactly where to start.

I was inspired to write this post by LunaMetrics, one of the top Analytics agencies in the world.

In this step-by-step tutorial I will explain in detail how you can set up the GTM basics in record time. I will use my “Marathon Training” website as an example here.

Step 1: Set up Google Tag Manager Account

I recommend you to use your Google Analytics account login for setting up your Google Tag Manager account.

Log in to your Google (Analytics) account and navigate to this URL.

Step 2a: Setup Account

Fill in your Account Name and it’s up to you whether you like to share data anonymously with Google or not.

Step 2b: Setup Container

Fill in your Container name and select web (if you own a website like me). You can change the name settings later if you make a mistake here.

Step 3: Accept GTM Terms of Service Agreement

Read through the service agreement and accept the terms and conditions.

Step 4: Install Google Tag Manager

Copy the code below and paste it onto every page of your website. Preferably immediately after the opening <body> tag.

Read this quick start guide if you have problems with installing the code.

Step 5: Review Your Account

After you have hit “OK” you will land on this page:

You just have created one account with one empty container. In order to get things rolling, you need to manually set up tags, triggers and variables, or…

Yes, there is a great solution. You can important a predefined container from our friends at LunaMetrics (!).

Step 6: Navigate to Bounteous.com

Bounteous has done a tremendous job by providing this GA Complete Pack for GTM.

The GA Complete Pack includes recipes to help setup and enhance your Google Analytics implementation, including some of their more advanced plugins.

• Basic Pageview Tracking
• File Download Tracking
• Contact Link Click Tracking
• Outbound Link Click Tracking
• YouTube Tracking
• Scroll Tracking
• Cookie Management Tools
• AJAX Listener

Step 7: Download GTM Container

In the top right section of the page is a “Download Container” link:Make sure to save it (JSON file) on your computer.

Step 8: Navigate to Admin Section of GTM Account

Now it’s time to import the container in GTM.

First you need to go to the admin section of your GTM account.

Step 9: Click on “Import Container” Link

Step 10: Upload JSON File

You can now upload the JSON file (luna-advanced.json) into your GTM account.

Step 11: Preview and Confirm Import

Before the container is imported in Google Tag Manager, you need to preview and confirm the upload.

Step 12: Review Container

Take a look at “Recent Activity” to confirm the import has succeeded:

The imported file helps you to easily measure core interactions in Google Analytics.

Step 13: Create a GTM (Test) Property in Google Analytics

I recommend to set up a temporary new property in Google Analytics first instead of simply removing your current Google Analytics script.

It doesn’t matter whether you have already deployed Classic or Universal Analytics. You simply don’t want to mess things up!

By doing this you can:

• Test whether your GTM set up works correctly
• Compare the data of the two properties

Simply click on “Create new property” link and you can easily set up your Google Analytics 4 test property:

You are allowed to create 50 properties in one account. In this case it is my second property and reads “UA-XXXXXXXX-2.

Step 14: Change Variable in GTM

There is one variable in GTM that you need to change to get this to work. It’s a user-defined variable.

You can find it in the variables list, named: YOUR_GA_TRACKING_ID.

Change “UA-XXXXXX-YY” into the tracking id of your new created property.

Step 15: Preview Container

In the “Versions” section click on “Preview” latest version (probably version 2).

Step 16: Refresh Your Website

Yeah, a lots of tags are fired on this page. It looks good!

Step 17: Publish Container

It’s time to publish the container if everything looks good.

Step 1:
Step 2:Make sure to leave preview mode in the container section.

Step 18: Use Real-Time Analytics for Final Check

I have just visited this page: http://www.marathon-training-tips.com/marathon-training-schedule.html.

Let’s check Google Analytics now:

Note: make sure not to exclude your IP address in the GTM test property/view if you want to verify your data with real-time reports in Google Analytics.

Helpful guides:

• Ultimate Guide to Google Analytics Filters
• Ultimate Guide to Regular Expressions

Step 19: Compare Data of Both Properties

From now on you have your “old” property (UA-XXXXXXXX-1) collecting data and your fresh, new GTM property (UA-XXXXXXXX-2) collecting data as well.

I recommend to wait a few days to see your data coming in properly.

The numbers might deviate a bit, that’s normal!

Step 20: Change Tracking ID in GTM

Let’s assume you are satisfied with everything.

There are two last things you need to do:

• Change UA number “-2” to “-1” in Google Tag Manager (please see step 14).
• Remove your current hardcoded script(s).

You made it, congratulations!

Bonus

In the beginning of this article I mentioned all the great stuff this plugin can do for you. A short recap:

• Basic Pageview Tracking
• File Download Tracking
• Contact Link Click Tracking
• Outbound Link Click Tracking
• YouTube Tracking
• Scrolltracking

You might want to set up a few new goals that are in line with your business and the (probably) new things you are measuring now.

Note: this is not a complete Google Tag Manager installation. There might be a few things you need to track additionally. It just gives you a head start!

Well, this is it for now. I hope this guide helps you to implement Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager in a smart way!

Of course there are many more things you can do with Google Tag Manager. But that is something for another time!

Do you already use Google Tag Manager and are you happy with it? Not yet using it, but inspired to consider switching to GTM? I am happy to hear your thoughts!

The post How to Implement Google Analytics via Google Tag Manager in Record Time appeared first on Online Metrics.