Unlocking insights with Google Tag Manager | Tom Bennet | LearnInbound, March 2018

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Tom Bennet | Head of Product Development | tom@builtvisible.com
Breathe Life Into Your Data
Unlocking Insights with Google Tag Manager

Understand and invest in your data.

61,761,319
websites
66%
of the top 100k sites
Source: SimilarTech

Goals /
KPIs
Collect
Data
Analyse
Data
Make
Changes
Review

The value of the insights offered by your
analytics software is directly tied to your
investment in data collection.

The challenges of engagement tracking.

“What’s up with our bounce rate?
Get it down by 10%.”

Cause: Failure to understand a particular metric.

Effect: Individuals are encouraged to fix the metric
rather than the underlying problems.

Effect: Individuals are encouraged to fix the metric
rather than the underlying problems.
unique to your site

Return to the definitions
“A bounce is a single-page session on your site.”
“…a bounce is calculated specifically as a session that
triggers only a single request to the Analytics server…”

A bounce
Entrance Exit

Sessions are a fictional construct
Raw hit data

Session 1
Duration: 42m 14s
Time on page: 19m
30 mins inactivity / midnight / campaign change
Sessions are a fictional construct
Session 2
Duration: 12m 02s

A session is simply the model which
Google Analytics uses to make sense of the world.

When a user bounces, GA does not have sufficient
data to calculate its normal metrics.
1 hit.


Questions we can’t answer...
What did the user do on the page?
How long was the user was on the page?
How valuable are they as a potential customer?
Did my website function properly on their device?
Did they read every single word and bookmark the page?

We lack good data.

GTM can help us improve our data collection.

You have control over the bounce rate calculation.

Pageview
Entrance Exit
Event which always fires
2 hits
0% bounce rate
By default, events will affect bounce rate

Control which events affect bounce rate
A non-interaction hit will be
ignored when calculating the
bounce rate.
Example: autoplay video events

So – how do we track engagement on a page level?
Scroll percentage?Events on timers?
Whether something was seen?

“I want to know who’s getting
this far.”
“I don’t want people who
reach this point to be
counted as bounces.”

Fire an event when something is seen
Fire a tag when a particular element
is visible in the browser’s viewport.
Example: email sign-up widget

Segment and pivot by page and
audience to inform strategy.
Can be specific to your business /
your website / your pages.
Analyse behaviour by page

This goes much further than just tweaking bounce rate.

Your data collection methods should not only be
tailored to your business, but to your pagetypes.

Consider interactive content…

Calculators
Credit

GTM lets us track highly specific interactions
“Track interactions [...] that aren't
handled by standard methods.”

Custom events
dataLayer.push({
'event': 'calculatorGo'
});

Custom events
Use this trigger to fire GA event

Custom variables

Custom variables
dataLayer.push({
'roomType': 'livingroom',
'glazingType': 'singleglaze',
'event': 'calculatorGo'
});

Custom variables
Create variables referencing our
two new data layer objects

Putting it all together…
We can now reference our
{{variables}} in the GA event tag.

…gives us relevant data.

Extend this further with goals
Define engagement with this content as
a conversion, then segment & analyse!
Use DLVs to programmatically assign
an event value in GTM (e.g. potential
revenue based on enquiry)
Set this as the goal value in GA.

We can gauge potential value of these conversions

Smarter segmentation.

Grouping blog content by author…

Unlocking insights with Google Tag Manager | Tom Bennet | LearnInbound, March 2018

Add the content grouping
to our pageview tag under
‘More Settings’

Reference our custom
variable which contains the
blog post author.
{{dlv-blogAuthor}}

Let’s start looking not at content, but at users…

Segmenting users based on behaviour

Content Groupings (like our previous example) let you
organise your pages into logical groups.
Custom Dimensions let you record additional, non-
standard data about hits, sessions, users, or products.

Hit Scope
Hit
• Page
• Event Action
Product
• Price
• Category
Session
• Landing Page
• Medium
User
• User Type
(new / return)

Once again, we use a custom
data layer event as our trigger.

Comment Submitted.
This pushes a custom event to the Data Layer…
…which GTM detects, triggering a normal GA event tag…
…and this hit includes a Custom Dimension
defining the user as a commenter.

Work with your developers.

Marketing Development

…and enforces a shared language.
• Data is accessible in a format which is
independent of any one platform or technology.
• Less prone to mistakes, decoupled from nuts and
bolts of your front end.

Collaboration is essential.

GTM is a JavaScript injector which can break your
entire website.

The Data Layer should be regarded as a prerequisite
for good measurement.

A gift for your development team!

By demonstrating success and unlocking actionable insight,
you can justify anything you need:
Bigger budgets.
More innovative projects.
Additional development resource.
Whatever you need to do your job better.

Need our expertise?
We can help you better measure your value with
accurate, intelligent, and custom reporting.
Interested in learning more?
Tom’s bespoke, tailored training plans can arm your
team with an industry-leading skillset, helping you stay
on the cutting edge of SEO.
Contact Us
Tom Bennet
Head of Product Development
49 Tabernacle Street
London EC2A 4AA
Tom@Builtvisible.com | @TomCBennet

Unlocking insights with Google Tag Manager | Tom Bennet | LearnInbound, March 2018

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