On Monday, Google announced the release of a new feature called Tag Manager. Recall if you will the last time you had to update tracking code on your website – be it for AdWords, Google Analytics, Remarketing or DoubleClick – odds are that for any number of reasons, it wasn’t what you’d call a pleasant experience. Tag Manager promises to change all of that. How, you ask? I will break it down:
1. Gather up all of your tracking code snippets. For supported tags, read here.
2. Set up a Tag Manager account. Add all of your code snippets.
3. Then – this is where it gets magical – Tag Manager spits out a SINGLE piece of code called a Container Snippet that essentially, well, contains all of your various code snippets. Allowing you to install ONE piece of code on your site.
4. Remove all of the individual snippets from your site, install the one snippet.
5. Never touch tracking code on your site again.
I’m simplifying a bit, so of course be sure to study the whole work flow here – but it really isn’t much more complicated than that. The beauty then is that if you ever need to edit the individual code snippets, you are able to do so without IT resources by simply using the web interface that houses all of your individual snippets. The Container Snippet that is physically coded in to your site doesn’t need to be touched to reflect changes that are made in the web interface (!!!).
So there you have it. A little bit of sunshine for your Tuesday. You’re welcome.