February 1, 2019

The Magic of Google Tag Manager and Cookies

Updated: February 1st, 2019. Cookies are a super important part of the web. Imagine the world without them: you wouldn’t be able to use your Facebook or Twitter. They help retain data throughout a user’s visit on a webpage, so naturally, they’re an important component of web analytics, as well.

By default, Google Analytics and other analytics tools use cookies in order to track users’ behavior on your website. Unfortunately, I still see many marketers (working with GTM) suffering over not being able to fire Tags for returning visitors, or after 4 page views, etc.

But this shouldn’t be a problem since you can use Google Tag Manager to set and retrieve data from cookies in a fairly easy way. In this blog post, I’ll show you how to easily utilize cookies with Google Tag Manager and take your web tracking to the next level.

I remember when I was just starting to learn GTM. It was a giant leap for me when I realized I could set and read cookies without a developer’s help. It added much more flexibility and freedom to my tag management.

What if I need to fire a specific Pop-up if a visitor originally landed on my website from Adwords AND has already viewed 5 pages? Not a problem!

Before we continue: this topic is also thoroughly explained in the Intermediate GTM Course

If you prefer video content over blog posts, then you should definitely consider enrolling in my Intermediate Google Tag Manager Course. In it, I will uncover many GTM features/tips/tricks that are often missed by intermediate users. Also, you will get a proper introduction to some technical topics that will help you go to the next level with GTM.

Enroll in Intermediate Google Tag Manager course

Why should you even bother with cookies? Few Examples

By setting and reading cookies with Google Tag Manager you can start creating much-sophisticated triggers, such as:

A visitor has viewed 5 pages. Let’s show him a popup with a special offer!
A visitor is actually a user in your SaaS (Software as a service) but is currently browsing without logging in. Nevertheless, he/she still has a cookie with value “registeredUser=true” which can be used as a condition for your trigger.
A visitor has landed on your website via an affiliate link. With each page view, you can preserve affiliate ID in visitor’s cookie. Here’s the full guide on how to do that.
Do you have a pricing page with price calculator? Let’s attach the calculator’s results (price) to that particular visitor. This way you’ll see how visitors with different price ranges are behaving on your site.

Pretty neat, huh?

So What’s the Plan?

First, someone has to set the cookie. That might be either you (with help of Google Tag Manager) or a developer.
Then, you need to create a 1st party cookie variable in GTM. It will look for a cookie with a particular name and make its value available in the data layer. You will also be able to see it in Google Tag Manager’s Preview and Debug mode.
Create a trigger where condition involves the aforementioned 1st party cookie variable.
Fire a tag based on a trigger from bullet point No. 3.
Profit.

Set cookies with Google Tag Manager

In order to set a cookie, you’ll need to create a custom HTML tag. It contains Javascript code which defines cookie’s name, expiration time, etc.

<script>
 
 var cookieName = "visitorFromAdwords"; // Name of your cookie
 var cookieValue = "true"; // Value of your cookie
 var expirationTime = 2592000; // One month in seconds
 expirationTime = expirationTime * 1000; // Converts expirationtime to milliseconds
 var date = new Date(); 
 var dateTimeNow = date.getTime(); 

 date.setTime(dateTimeNow + expirationTime); // Sets expiration time (Time now + one month)
 var date = date.toUTCString(); // Converts milliseconds to UTC time string
 document.cookie = cookieName+"="+cookieValue+"; SameSite=None; Secure; expires="+date+"; path=/; domain=." + location.hostname.replace(/^www\./i, ""); // Sets cookie for all subdomains

</script>

var cookieName = "visitorFromAdwords"; // Name of your cookie

var cookieValue = "true"; // Value of your cookie

var expirationTime = 2592000; // One month in seconds

expirationTime = expirationTime * 1000; // Converts expirationtime to milliseconds

var date = new Date();

var dateTimeNow = date.getTime();

date.setTime(dateTimeNow + expirationTime); // Sets expiration time (Time now + one month)

var date = date.toUTCString(); // Converts milliseconds to UTC time string

document.cookie = cookieName+"="+cookieValue+"; SameSite=None; Secure; expires="+date+"; path=/; domain=." + location.hostname.replace(/^www\./i, ""); // Sets cookie for all subdomains

</script>

In the script above, there are three variables that you should edit:

cookieName – you should give it a meaningful title, e.g. visitorFromAdwords, affiliateID, pageviewCount, etc.
cookieValue – In case of visitorFromAdwords possible values can be true or false. affiliateID cookie’s value can be 2385437, and pageviewCount cookie’s – 5.
expirationTime defines when the cookie expires. 2592000 is 30 days converted to seconds (30 days * 24 hours * 60 minutes * 60 seconds * 1000 seconds). If you want the cookie to expire after the session ends (when the browser window is closed), then remove expires=”+date+”; from the end of the script. Keep in mind, that Google Chrome still runs in the background when you close the browser window, thus the cookie will “live” longer.

Now, you need to decide when you want to set that cookie. Should this “set cookie” script fire when URL contains ?gclid= (meaning that a visitor landed via Adwords campaign)?

Say, we want to set cookies for those visitors, who have found our website via Google Adwords. In that case, we need to create a trigger with the following settings.

When a person clicks any Google ad, a destination URL contains ?gclid=XXXXXX. That’s the reason behind this trigger’s condition.

Test The Cookie

After you created custom HTML tag with the cookie-setting script and its trigger, next thing you should do is test the implementation with Preview and Debug mode. Make sure that the tag fires ONLY when URL contains ?gclid=. If you’re new to Preview and Debug mode, read this comprehensive guide.

Now, let’s check whether a cookie is set correctly. There are two main ways to check cookies – the browser’s built-in feature (developer tools) or a plugin.

Personally, I am using Chrome plugin called EditThisCookie (also available for Opera users). This really simple and intuitive extension enables me to quickly check which cookies are currently in use and what data do they contain.

If you haven’t already installed, download it here. If you’re using a different browser, here are some similar plugins:

Firefox – Cookies Manager+
For Internet Explorer users, it’s recommended to use built-in features of developer tools.

Anyway, let’s get back to EditThisCookie. Once you have installed this extension, a cookie icon will appear next to the Menu icon (in Chrome).

Go to the website you’re currently working on, click EditThisCookie icon and you’ll see an expanded list of all cookies that are currently in use on that website. Look for cookie named visitorFromAdwords. This little piece of data will help us do the magic in further chapters of this blog post.

Read The Cookie

Now, we need to “teach” Google Tag Manager read the cookie and make it available as a variable. Go to your GTM account, open list of Variables and create a new user-defined variable with the following settings:

This variable searches for cookies with title visitorFromAdwords. If it spots one, GTM will read its value and make it available in the Variables tab of Preview and Debug console.

This enables you to use visitorFromAdwords variable in any GTM tag or trigger, like in the example below:

Example – Fire a Tag on 3rd Page View

This is one of the most popular use cases of cookies with Google Tag Manager. For your convenience, I have prepared a GTM Recipe with a ready-made script which counts the number of page views and fires a trigger after 3. But if you’re eager to understand the details, continue reading.

DOWNLOAD THIS GTM RECIPE

Let’s Count Page Views

First of all, you’ll need to create a custom HTML tag which counts page views. Every time a page refreshes, this script searches for cookie pageviewCount and increments its value by 1.

<script>function setCookie(name, value, expires) {
 var cookie = name + "=" + value + "; path=/; domain=." + location.hostname.replace(/^www\./i, "");

 if (typeof expires !== "undefined") {
 var now = new Date();
 now.setTime(now.getTime() + expires * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);
 cookie += "; expires=" + now.toUTCString();
 }

 document.cookie = cookie;
}

function getCookie(name) {
 var cookies = document.cookie.split(";"),
 toReturn;

 for (var i = 0; i < cookies.length; i++) {
 var cookie = cookies[i].trim();
 if (cookie.indexOf(name + "=") === 0) {
 toReturn = cookie.substring((name + "=").length, cookie.length);
 }
 }

 return toReturn;
}

(function() {
 var pageviewCount = getCookie("pageviewCount");

 if (typeof pageviewCount === "undefined") {
 pageviewCount = 1;
 } else {
 pageviewCount++;
 }

 setCookie("pageviewCount", pageviewCount, 30);

})();
</script>

var cookie = name + "=" + value + "; path=/; domain=." + location.hostname.replace(/^www\./i, "");

if (typeof expires !== "undefined") {

var now = new Date();

now.setTime(now.getTime() + expires * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);

cookie += "; expires=" + now.toUTCString();

}

document.cookie = cookie;

}

function getCookie(name) {

var cookies = document.cookie.split(";"),

toReturn;

for (var i = 0; i < cookies.length; i++) {

var cookie = cookies[i].trim();

if (cookie.indexOf(name + "=") === 0) {

toReturn = cookie.substring((name + "=").length, cookie.length);

}

return toReturn;

}

(function() {

var pageviewCount = getCookie("pageviewCount");

if (typeof pageviewCount === "undefined") {

pageviewCount = 1;

} else {

pageviewCount++;

}

setCookie("pageviewCount", pageviewCount, 30);

})();

</script>

The cookie (set by this Javascript) expires after 30 days. You can easily change its duration by editing setCookie(“pageviewCount”, pageviewCount, 30).

Set this custom HTML to fire on all pages. Refresh Preview and Debug mode, open EditThisCookie plugin and check whether the cookie was successfully saved. Now, refresh the page. Cookie’s value should increase to 2.

If you want this cookie to be valid only for that visitor session, here’s a modified script (I’ve removed all parts which are related to expiration date). Keep in mind, that Chrome handles cookies a bit differently (compared to other browsers). Even if you close the tab or window, the Chrome still might keep running in the background, therefore session cookies might be still valid.

<script>function setCookie(name, value) {
 var cookie = name + "=" + value + "; path=/; domain=." + location.hostname.replace(/^www\./i, "");

 document.cookie = cookie;
}

function getCookie(name) {
 var cookies = document.cookie.split(";"),
 toReturn;

 for (var i = 0; i < cookies.length; i++) {
 var cookie = cookies[i].trim();
 if (cookie.indexOf(name + "=") === 0) {
 toReturn = cookie.substring((name + "=").length, cookie.length);
 }
 }

 return toReturn;
}

(function() {
 var pageviewCount = getCookie("pageviewCount");

 if (typeof pageviewCount === "undefined") {
 pageviewCount = 1;
 } else {
 pageviewCount++;
 }

 setCookie("pageviewCount", pageviewCount);

})();
</script>

var cookie = name + "=" + value + "; path=/; domain=." + location.hostname.replace(/^www\./i, "");

document.cookie = cookie;

}

function getCookie(name) {

var cookies = document.cookie.split(";"),

toReturn;

for (var i = 0; i < cookies.length; i++) {

var cookie = cookies[i].trim();

if (cookie.indexOf(name + "=") === 0) {

toReturn = cookie.substring((name + "=").length, cookie.length);

}

return toReturn;

}

(function() {

var pageviewCount = getCookie("pageviewCount");

if (typeof pageviewCount === "undefined") {

pageviewCount = 1;

} else {

pageviewCount++;

}

setCookie("pageviewCount", pageviewCount);

})();

</script>

Cookie variable and trigger in Google Tag Manager

Since we have created pageviewCount cookie, now it’s time to “teach” Google Tag Manager read the cookie and make it available as a variable. Go to your GTM account and open list of Variables. Create a new user-defined variable with the following settings:

Next, go to Triggers and create a new Page view trigger with the following settings:

This trigger will fire when the cookie’s value is greater or equal to 3.

That’s it! You can now assign this trigger to any tag you want, whether it is a pop-up or Google Analytics event tag, or whatever. It’s up to your imagination.

Delete a Cookie

If you want to delete a particular 1st-party cookie, you need to set its expiration time to the past date, e.g. 1970 January 1st. Such cookies cannot exist, therefore, they immediately expire.

Here’s a script that you should use:

<script>
 function delete_cookie(name) {
 var expires = new Date(0).toUTCString();
 var domain = location.hostname.replace(/^www\./i, "");
 document.cookie = name + "=; expires=" + expires + "; path=/; domain=." + domain;
 }

 delete_cookie("yourCookieName"); // REPLACE yourCookieName WITH THE NAME OF THE COOKIE YOU WANT TO DELETE
</script>

function delete_cookie(name) {

var expires = new Date(0).toUTCString();

var domain = location.hostname.replace(/^www\./i, "");

document.cookie = name + "=; expires=" + expires + "; path=/; domain=." + domain;

}

delete_cookie("yourCookieName"); // REPLACE yourCookieName WITH THE NAME OF THE COOKIE YOU WANT TO DELETE

</script>

In the 8th line of the code, change yourCookieName with the name of a cookie you wish to delete. This code should also be implemented via GTM Custom HTML tag and fired whenever you need to delete a cookie (e.g. after a conversion, opt-out or something else).

Few More Ideas

If you still don’t know how to leverage cookies in your marketing stack, here’s food for thought. I hope these examples will help you break the ice:

If you run an affiliate program, you already know that visitors come to your site via affiliate links (which contain unique affiliate ID). You can fetch that data from URL, set it as a cookie and send to Google Analytics as Custom Dimensions. This way you’ll see how well/terrible affiliate traffic is converting. Also, you can identify which affiliate partner is driving the most engaged traffic.
If a person made a purchase on your site, save this fact as a cookie. Then, create a pageview trigger which blocks pop-ups (irrelevant to recent buyers).
If you run a SaaS business, ask developers to set various data about the user to cookies. Even if the user is logged out, you can still identify him/her visiting your website/blog/etc. and send that data to Google Analytics as custom dimensions. But be aware of PII limitations.

Not all 1st party cookies can be read with Google Tag Manager

In fact, this applies not only to GTM but to client-side JavaScript in general. If you’re already familiar with cookies, you know that all the cookies (set on that page) can be seen by going to your browser’s developer tools. I’m using Chrome, therefore, the full path to that part is Chrome’s Menu > More Tools > Developer Tools > Application > Cookies.

Then choose your domain. You should see something like this:

Those are the 1st party cookies you could potentially use in Google Tag Manager. Various scripts and other functionality on your site set those cookies to your visitors’ browsers. However, not all of them can be accessed by JavaScript in your browser (including GTM).

If a cookie has a checkbox in the HTTP or Secure columns, GTM will not be able to access its value. This means that a 1st party cookie variable will return undefined.

Working with cookies and Google Tag Manager: Final Words

So there you have it. Turns out it’s pretty easy to manage cookies with Google Tag Manager. First, you need to fire a custom HTML tag which sets the cookie with a particular value. Then, you need to create a 1st party cookie variable within GTM.

This variable’s value can be transferred to other tools (such as Google Analytics) or used as a firing condition within a trigger.

If you’re looking for ways how to fire a particular tag after 3 page views, or for those visitors, who have visited a particular page, then cookies should be your weapon of choice. Another solution is browser storage (localStorage and sessionStorage), but that’s a topic for another time.

Do you know more tricks on how to use cookies with Google Tag Manager? Let me know in the comments.

By the way, I’ve noticed some people asking the question “does Google Tag Manager use cookies by default?”. They are worried about various privacy regulations. To answer that, I’ve published a blog post.

Julius Fedorovicius

In Google Tag Manager Tips

66 COMMENTS

Mayo Racek

May 19 2017
Reply

Hello,

this is a fantastic way to measure the content engagement and create some smart metrics that can really impact the business bottom line.

Much thanks for this solution. If I could ask 2 question.

1. The cookie is valid till the end of the session (30min) or if the user returns to the site after one week it will continue to count the pageviews where it ends for current cookie?

2. Do you have an idea how to find out which page was last pageview?

Thanks a lot for great blog and really appreciate your work

have a great day

Mayo Racek

May 19 2017
Reply

Just to clarify question 2.

What i would like to know what was the total count of pages for "user"/client id to make some deeper analysis to find out what value certain page has.

is there a chance to fire a special tag in GTM when the user sees last page and i will be able to grab the count of how much pages there were before they reached the current page?

hope it is a bit understandable, anyway, pardon me the little messy explanation.

Thanks a lot

Julius Fedorovicius

May 19 2017
Reply

Hey,

1. One cookie can be have only one expiration date: either session, either 1 week. If your cookie expires after session AND then user returns after 1 week, page view counter will start counting from start (1).

2. Sorry, I am still not sure whether I understood the 2nd question. If you wish to see how many page views or sessions do your visitors make, you can go to Audience > Behavior > Frequency and Recency. Did that answer your question?

Scott Sunderland

Jul 6 2017
Reply

This is glorious. Great work Julius!

Bastognekoek

Nov 1 2017
Reply

Hi, how do I set the cookie to expire at the end of the session in the "Let's count pageviews" code.

If I remove 30 from this part of the code I get an error: setCookie("pageviewCount", pageviewCount, 30);

Bastognekoek

Nov 27 2017
Reply

Hi Julius, can you answer my question please? Thx!

Julius Fed

Nov 27 2017
Reply

Hey, sorry, somehow I missed your comment. In order to create a cookie which is valid only for that session, you do not need to edit "Let's count pageviews" script. Instead, use the very first script (in "Set cookies with Google Tag Manager" section) and edit two things:
1. Remove the line no. 5 (var expirationTime = 2592000; // One month in seconds)
2. Edit line no. 12 by removing expires="+expirationTime+"; As a final result, the line no. 12 should look like this:
document.cookie = cookieName+"="+cookieValue+"; path=/; domain=." + location.hostname.replace(/^www\./i, "");

What I did here was to remove everything that has something to do with Expiration. If expiration setting is not defined, the cookie will be active only during that session. But keep in mind how Chrome handles sessions. Even if you close the browser window, Chrome might keep running in the background, therefore that session cookie might still be available.

Cheers

Bastognekoek

Nov 27 2017
Reply

Hi Julius,

Thx for your reply. I think you misunderstood me. I have to use the "Let's count pageviews" script, cause that's what I want to do (count page views and store them in a cookie). As you say in your explanation:

"this script searches for cookie pageviewCount and increments its value by 1."

The cookie pageviewCount is set by creating a user defined variable in GTM. Like you explained here:

"Go to your GTM account and open list of Variables. Create new user-defined variable with the following settings:"

So if I want the cookie pageviewCount to only live during the session, I'll have to update the "Let's count pageviews" script. This is what led me to my question.

If I remove 30 from this part of the code in the "Let's count pageviews" code, I get an error: setCookie(“pageviewCount”, pageviewCount, 30);"

Julius Fed

Nov 28 2017

Yes, apparently, I indeed misunderstood you. I've updated the blog post by adding an additional, modified, script which creates a cookie valid only for that session. You can find it below the paragraph you've quoted in your last comment. Keep in mind that issue with Chrome is still possible.

Cheers

Bastognekoek

Dec 4 2017

Great! Thx for this!

David

Nov 7 2017
Reply

Hi! Thanks for the article, is excellent! I have a question. I can create a cookie that maintenance the UTM into "dl"(document.location) parameter? I have a problem with SPA(AngularJs) and source, atributtion, and after to test diferent options, I think this could be the solution. Do you believe that it is possible?

Julius Fed

Nov 13 2017
Reply

Hey, sorry, I don't know a lot about SPA in AngularJS, thus I'm not sure whether it can help you. But yes, you can definitely store document.location in a cookie.

Andrew

Nov 30 2017
Reply

Hello! Awesome script. Is there a way to modify the pageviewCount script so that it counts number of sessions as opposed to pageviews? Rather than counting how many times a page is viewed, I was hoping to use the cookie to determine how often a customer comes back to the site to check on prices or products. Thanks!

Julius Fed

Dec 4 2017
Reply

Hey, not sure. This is a whole another level of JavaScript development. And I'm not very efficient with it. On one hand, this idea sounds a bit hacky and might cause a lot of inaccurate data but maybe I'm wrong.

Margaret White

Feb 13 2018
Reply

Hi Julius,

thank you so much for this article! I would like to ask a question:

I am tracking form submissions on my website right now and here is what a typical journey of a user looks like:

1) Reach product landing page (urls are tagged with UTM, e.g. ?variable=facebook)
2) Clicks on product interest submission form and is redirected to a third party site where they can select their choice of product
3) is redirected back to my site where they can proceed to submit the form which grabs the product of their choice from the third party site

Can i use this method as stated in the article to preserve the cookie from step 2 to step 3 so i am able to attribute to form submission back to facebook?

Thank you!

Julius Fed

Feb 13 2018
Reply

Yes, you can.

Set the cookie in step 1 (I'd set its duration to a couple of hours, but you know your business/website better than me). When the user is redirected back to your site in step 3 and submits the form, fire all conversion tags you need and then fire one more Custom HTML tag which deletes the cookie.

Here's a solution how to delete a particular cookie by name (set its date to the past) https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10593013/delete-cookie-by-name (see the most upvoted answer). Take that code snippet, change cookie's name and paste the code to Custom HTML tag.

Emilya

Apr 12 2018
Reply

You are the best. This is the most helpful article. Thank you very much. As for how to use a cookie - I have a situation where our customer help agents open sessions logged in as customers and place orders for them. In every way during the session, this looks as if the customer is placing the order, but I need to create reports specifying when it's an agent and when it's a customer. Setting a cookie just when the agent starts the session is the trick. Thank you again!

Julius Fed

Apr 15 2018
Reply

Happy to help!

Baldwin

Apr 19 2018
Reply

Hi Julius,

Thanks for this article. We have three different enviroments in one site. Each enviroment has a subdomein adres like: shop.site.com, community.site.com and www.site.com. The cookie can be first set by a visit in one of the enviroments. But in another enviroment I wish to use it.

So for example a visitor lands in the community.site.com. I start the pageview cookie, count the pageviews. The vistor jumps to shop.site.com and I add these pageviews. Leaves the site. Comes back a few days later to www.site.com and I wish to continue counting.

How do I set and read a cookie over these subdomains. I suppose I like to have a *.site.com cookie. But how? Do you have a suggestion?

Julius Fed

Apr 20 2018
Reply

Hi, the script that I've shared in this blog post takes the hostname of the current page and adds a "dot" at the beginning (and removes www). So if a visitor is on community.site.com, the cookie will be added to ".community.site.com", as a result, the cookie will not be reached by the www.site.com.

Here's a solution:
Change the 12th line from
document.cookie = cookieName+"="+cookieValue+"; expires="+expirationTime+"; path=/; domain=." + location.hostname.replace(/^www\./i, "");
to
document.cookie = cookieName+"="+cookieValue+"; expires="+expirationTime+"; path=/; domain=.site.com"

Just change "site.com" to the actual domain (without subdomains).

Baldwin

Apr 24 2018
Reply

Thanks Julius,

Now I understand the code better.

Neil Duckmanton

May 16 2018
Reply

Hi there

Hoping you can advise/help. I've been reading elsewhere that in line with GDPR, you should on first visit to a site give visitors the option to activate and deactivate specific types/groups of cookies. This includes the usual Analytics cookies as also any linked to Tag Manager. The general advice I've read is that these should be turned off by default and giving a toggle switch opportunity to turn them on. Assuming this is correct and visitors don't bother to activate that group of cookies, will this mean that any use of tracking via Tag Manager for things like form submissions, Adwords and general site stats is rendered useless?

Julius Fed

May 17 2018
Reply

Hey, if cookies do not contain personal information about the visitor, then you have no problem (or if those cookies are not sent to other systems).

To be honest, I'm still not sure what's going to happen next. Looks like the privacy law was prepared without looking at what's happening in the market. Also, the ePrivacy (new cookie law) is still not finished (it's expected to be prepared at the end of 2018), maybe it will shed some light.

Some parts or GDPR are so hardcore, that even EU regulators themselves are not prepared, here's the source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-privacy-analysis/european-regulators-were-not-ready-for-new-privacy-law-idUSKBN1I915X

My position here would be to:
- implement a semi-compliant cookie consent which lets visitors act before being tracked (with the possibility to disable tracking) and all (or the majority) of tracking groups would be pre-checked.
- Enable anonymized IP in GA, probably disable Display Advertising features.
- Fire tracking pixels when the consent is given but it would be very easy to do so.
- Wait and see.

Once again, I've read GDPR, I am aware of their suggestions, but seeing what's happening around (with other companies), I'm choosing to comply with the majority of requirements but not all.

And then I'll see what happens on the market. Since even the EU itself is not ready yet, I don't think that (at least for now) there will be fines or big lawsuits for small/medium businesses. Large corporations maybe could be worried more.

But that's just my position which can be easily changed/manipulated. So don't ever take this as a legal advice.

By the way, I've seen some folks developing a content gate, which works as follows:
- First step - "Are you from EU?"
- If a visitor chooses "No", all tracking works normally
- If a visitor chooses "Yes", then another gate appears which offers to Accept all cookies with one click and a link to cookie settings.

That way at least some portion of data will remain intact.

Neil Duckmanton

May 20 2018
Reply

Thanks for the taking the time for a detailed reply Julian. Having read and chatted to a few more people recently I'm pretty much on the same page as you.

Karol

May 18 2018
Reply

Hello Julius,

I would like to ask you if there any possibility how to save already allowed cookies to local storage or somewhere else. Thanks!

Julius Fed

May 18 2018
Reply

Hey, in my guide you've already learned how to read cookies. Take that variable (or variables?) and use them in Simo's script which stores data in the LocalStorage. Here's his guide (session storage is also there).

Vladimir

May 24 2018
Reply

Hi,

How can I store actual ?gclid value as cookie value?

So my cookie AdWordsVisitor would have value of "sef323f23f23f23f23" if user landed with URL parameter ?gclid=sef323f23f23f23f23

RobertB

Jun 18 2018
Reply

Hi Julius,

excellent article!

I have a question: What would the code look like, if I want to count the pageviews per PAGE.

So when I browse to a new page, it should be always 1 and when I refresh the SAME page it should increase by 1. I want to trigger a special pageview for Goal Tracking, only when the count for a page equals 1.

Many Thanks in advance!
Robert

Tanner

Jun 25 2018
Reply

Looks like the 1st Party Cookie Variable is set on Page View. Any way to set the Variable on an event just like a dataLayer variable?

Julius Fed (Fedorovicius)

Jun 25 2018
Reply

Why do you need that?

Tanner

Jun 25 2018
Reply

Cookies can change in value on any event, might want to update the Variable's value to reflect the change if I'm using triggers that depend on this Variable.

Julius

Jun 25 2018
Reply

Still sounds strange :) why don't you just use "1st party cookie" variable in your triggers?

Anyway, if you want to store cookie's value in the data layer, use dataLayer.push (via custom html tag) https://www.analyticsmania.com/post/datalayer-push/

You can insert cookie's value in that datalayer push with help of curly brackets {{}}. Read tip no.3 https://www.analyticsmania.com/post/insert-variables-in-google-tag-manager/

Tanner

Jun 27 2018

Sorry if I wasn't clear. OP was saying that *I am* using the "1st Party Cookie" but it only sets through the first page load. I change the cookie on an event but the GTM 1st Party Cookie variable that I've created doesn't get re-set.

I'm currently using dataLayer.push() as a workaround.

I'm wondering if you had experience with the 1st Party Cookie and if you've been able to have it change when the cookie changes?

Julius

Jun 28 2018

Yes, I do have experience with that variable. 1st party cookie is checked by the GTM every time there is an event in the dataLayer. So if something changes the value of the cookie outside of GTM, its value in GTM will change only after at least one datalayer event, like click or something else.

Drew Warren

Jun 25 2018
Reply

Really helpful article,
Could you provide a little more detail on implementing the 'Affiliate ID' use case? I have a URL that passes a unique value (e.g. www.domain.com/?src=XXXXXX), I was able configure a GTM variable to pass the value to GA as a custom dimension, but do not understand how to edit the cookie script to set those unique values on subsequent pages.

Julius Fed (Fedorovicius)

Jun 26 2018
Reply

Hey, here's the guide that can help you https://www.analyticsmania.com/post/track-affiliate-sales-with-google-tag-manager-and-google-analytics/

Aug 17 2018
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I'm struggling with one thing:
I want to do a sort of "super conversion": A tag (or trigger) that fires when 3 conditions are met. But no matter what I try, either the tag is fired when EITHER of the 3 conditions are met or it doesnt fire in the first place.

To be precise. On my page there are 3 PDF files. Clicks on each of them can, obviously, easily be tracked. But what can I do if I want the tag to fire only when ALL 3 of the files are clicked? (the order is irrelevant)

Furthermore, what got me here is the following: If possible, I'd like to use a persistent cookie for this conversion, so that if a user has, say, clicked only on 2 of the files but then returns some time later and clicks on the third, the trag will fire.

Finally, and this is where it gets really tricky, I'd like to do the following: Actually, theres a total of 6 files on the page but 2 of them should be mandatory for the tag to fire. The tag should fire if those 2 plus ONE of the remaining 4 files are clicked.

I just dont get it to work. I have the impression that (at least without the persistent cookie but maybe even with it) this should be simple but I must be missing something.

If you use 3 conditions for your trigger, GTM tells you that all of those conditions must be met. So I dont get where the mistake is. It might be in the tag, as I'm really not sure what to put in "label", "action" etc. but I might be on the wrong track altogether.

I would really appreciate a reply.

Best,
DM

Julius Fedorovicius

Aug 17 2018
Reply

Hey, create a separate cookie for each downloaded document (each cookie would need to have a different cookie name) and use all three 1st party cookie variables in your trigger.

Of course, you could create one cookie for all three documents, but this is an advanced technique and requires some good knowledge of JavaScript.

As for your last idea, this requires custom JavaScript code and it goes beyond my knowledge as well.

So for starters, I'd go with separate cookies for each downloaded document as it can be achieved even by a non-developer.

Sep 21 2018
Reply

Hi Julius,
thanks for the reply.

I actually tried it similar to how you described it before I read your reply. I created a cookie for each file but in that case the tag gets triggered everytime I click on another page.

Since the cookie is persistent, the trigger "remembers" that the cookies have already been triggered. Once I visit a different page, the cookies are still triggered, hence the tag will get triggered every time a new page loads, as the cookies are still active.

God, I'm awful at describing this. Sorry!

Still thanks a lot for your reply!
Best!

Julius Fedorovicius

Sep 24 2018
Reply

Hi, two questions:
- What are the current conditions of your click trigger that fires too often?
- When *should* that trigger fire? I mean, when do you want it to fire?

Vaibhav Jain

Aug 28 2018
Reply

Hi Lulius,
On My site We have integrated Google tag manager code snippets which are given
https://developers.google.com/tag-manager/quickstart

When it is executing its creating some cookies with name _utma, _utmb, _utmc etc.. Cookies are created without http and secure attribute, this is security concern and raised by our scanner team.
Could you please suggest how to make these cookies with http and secure attribute?

Please suggest.

Julius Fedorovicius

Aug 28 2018
Reply

These cookies have nothing to do with GTM. They belong to Google Analytics. In fact, they belong to Classic Google Analytics which is an outdated technology. You should migrate to Universal Analytics, which is the new version. And by saying "Migrate" I mean that you need to refactor the entire GA tracking implementation and start using Universal Analytics tags.

sathur

Dec 12 2018
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Hi Julius,
Is there any way to create a tag to fire after completing 60 sec session duration (not in a single page - consider the entire session)

Julius Fedorovicius

Dec 12 2018
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This method affects the average session duration, not the avg. time spent on page. Sounds strange but that's how Google Analytics works. Read more about how these two metrics are calculated

The average time on page is just a difference between one page load and another. Events do not affect it.

Daniel A Arnoldussen

Jan 8 2019
Reply

I am finding that the JS is only working with the first line and any line after the first doesn't work. Any thoughts. Here is my code.

document.getElementById("input_4_6").value = "{{Client ID}}";
document.getElementById("input_1_7").value = "{{Client ID}}";
document.getElementById("input_6_9").value = "{{Client ID}}";

Basia

Apr 1 2019
Reply

How the final code for setting up a session cookie should look like?

Julius Fedorovicius

Jul 11 2019
Reply

The code example in this blog post looks like the final code.

James Scaggs

Jun 6 2019
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Thanks for the quick reference. Came in very handy this morning wrapping up a project :)

John Wedderburn

Jul 5 2019
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Thanks for sharing this - super useful!

Luca

Jul 10 2019
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Hi Julius, this is the best article on cookies for GTM. I have a question, how is it possible to setup a Variable with First Party Cookie to teach GA to read a cookie from a CRM system (Microsoft Dynamics)?
I know that it's possible to send CRM data to GA, bur I need to find the CRM cookie name, any clue on how to achieve this would be amazing!

Julius Fedorovicius

Jul 11 2019
Reply

If you're working on Chrome > More Tooles > Developer Tools > Application > Cookies, Choose the domain of your website. You will then see all the first-party cookies that are available to be read (if they don't have the checkbox HTTP or Secure).

How to find out which cookie do you need? I'd google that and search forums. There are no strict rules on how to name cookies, therefore, I cannot tell you the final answer.

Tom

Aug 29 2019
Reply

Hello! Great tutorial. Quick question - what's the cleanest way to set multiple cookies in one tag? Let's say I want to capture in a cookie "UTM" content - utm_source, utm_medium, utm_content, etc. Is there a variation on your cookie set code? Is it wise to just have each as an individual cookie set tag? Should I do all the scripts individually in one tag? Thank you for the guidance!

Yaroslav

Oct 27 2019
Reply

Hi Julius,
Thank you for the guide - it is incredibly detailed and clear.

But a question - is there anything like a "Cookie Listener" for when a cookie gets created or updated?

I understand, that the question is somewhat strange - but I am in a situation where I may need something like this.

Julius Fedorovicius

Oct 27 2019
Reply

You could try something like this

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14344319/can-i-be-notified-of-cookie-changes-in-client-side-javascript

I haven't done it myself, though

Roland

Jan 20 2020
Reply

I was wondering what the impact of the chrome 80 update is on cookies being dropped from GTM.

(https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/5633521622188032)

Julius Fedorovicius

Feb 5 2020
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Hi, if the cookie is set within the iframe and that iframe belongs to another domain, that is treated as a 3rd party context, meaning that cookie will not be stored.

To reflect the upcoming changes, I've updated the code accordingly and included "SameSite=None;Secure". I'll update the guide accordingly in the nearest future.

Mark

Feb 24 2020
Reply

Thanks for this Julius!
How can I make sure these cookies fire domain1.com and also on domain2.com?

Julius Fedorovicius

Feb 25 2020
Reply

Cookies set on domain1.com cannot be accessed on domain2.com.

How to check if a cookie has been set? Use editThisCookie extension or browser's dev tools (I have mentioned them in this guide)

Sunil

Feb 27 2020
Reply

Hi Julius,

Thanks for the awesome post. I have a query.
I want to set a cookie which can store first name and their gender on form submit and show the same on thank you page with their name.

How to do that?

Seoyun Heo

Mar 16 2020
Reply

Hey Julius,

Thank you for another great article!
I created a custom html tag with all page trigger and submitted it. However, the cookie shows up ONLY when I turn on GTM preview mode. I went through all the steps and cannot see what I missed.
Have you heard a similar situation?

Thank you in advance!

Julius Fedorovicius

Mar 16 2020
Reply

Yes, you need to publish your container.

Seoyun Heo

Mar 19 2020
Reply

As I mentioned in the text above, I did published it...

Julius

Mar 19 2020
Reply

1. Check your trigfer settings
2. Check the javascript console if there are any errors related to that
3. Publish the container once again. I have seen way too many situations where people claimed that they published the container and still somehow managed not to do this.

Without more information, I cannot help.

kamyar

Mar 27 2020
Reply

Hi,thank you very much for this great post!

I want to validate and fire a tag when somebody view page (for eg mysite.com) for 30 seconds (this part is OK) and he/she was viewed a site before that (like example.com).
I feel we can use cookies for this..

just like the "example.com" has a cookie value (like "exmp-true") and i want to say:
fire a tag trigger, when the timer was passed and cookie is ("exmp-true" or something it should be, mightbe cookie should be example.com)

i know its not your job to helping me, but if you helping me, ill thank you so much

Gus

Apr 6 2020
Reply

What line are you referring to with this comment?
"If you want the cookie to expire after the session ends (when the browser window is closed), then remove expires=”+expirationTime+”; from the end of the script."

Is it line 6 or part of 12?

Julius Fedorovicius