Google Tag Manager vs Google Analytics: What’s the difference?
Updated: June 13th, 2018. When I first heard about Google Tag Manager (GTM) in early 2013, I felt a bit confused. At that time I had no idea that tag management was a thing at all, so naturally, I found myself questioning what Google Tag Manager was anyway? What’s the difference between Google Analytics events and GTM events?
And I actually still notice this trend of confusion among many beginners nowadays as well. In this blog post, I’ll compare Google Tag Manager vs Google Analytics and show you the main differences.
Google Analytics In a Nutshell
Google Analytics’ main purpose is generating reports and statistics about your website, for example:
- how many people visited your website yesterday.
- what country are they from.
- how many pages they visited per session.
- how many visitors bounced off your website (without performing any action).
- which pages were the most popular, etc.
The only way Google Analytics can track these user interactions is with the help of marketing tag. Usually, it’s called GA Tracking Code or GA Javascript code snippet which must be placed on every page of your website.
Once an interaction occurs on a site (e.g. pageview), a Javascript snippet sends the corresponding data to Google Analytics’ servers.
There’s no problem if you just want to put the GA tag on all websites and track general information like pageviews, bounce rate, session duration, referrals, etc.
However, you may want to track how many people use a specific feature on your website/app. Or maybe you are interested in tracking sales, huh? In this case, you’ll need to add custom tags – Google Analytics events which send the data only when a visitor completes a particular action on your website. A good example here could be a form submission.
So what do you do here? Ask the developer to add that form submission tracking tag to a website, right? But what happens when there are tens or hundreds of interactions you are willing to track with Google Analytics?
Unfortunately, it will require a lot of developer’s time (and they are always very busy!). It might take weeks or even months until you can get your marketing tags up and running, which is a real bummer.
Google Tag Manager to the Rescue!
Google Tag Manager makes it easier to manage this mess of tags by letting you define the rules of when certain tags should fire, but first, let’s take a quick overview of GTM.
Google Tag Manager is a free software from Google that allows you to deploy various types of code (tags) to your website. Some good examples of a tag would be Google Analytics tracking code, Google Analytics event codes, Adwords conversion script and remarketing tags. There are many more types of code that can be added to your website using GTM, including custom codes.
Google Tag Manager does not replace Google Analytics. Instead, it helps users to easily add Google Analytics tracking code (tag) to your website, deploy GA event code snippets and define rules, when each GA event must fire.
Prior to GTM, GA tracking codes had to be hard-coded, usually by a web developer on each individual page. Having hundreds of events is very difficult when it comes to maintaining/updating them. But Google Tag Manager solves this problem because all your tags are stored in one place – your GTM account.
Imagine that Google Tag Manager is a Toolbox, where you keep all your tools: a ruler (Google Analytics), a hammer (Google Adwords), etc.
Google Tag Manager also lets you test your tags to make sure they are triggered when you load the right page or click a particular button. Another great benefit: you can change your tags and the way they work without actually changing the source code of your website (which you may not be able to do because of slow release cycles or busy schedule of developers) – instead you just edit tags in GTM user interface and publish changes with a click of a button.
Google Analytics is not the only tag compatible with Google Tag Manager. Other examples include:
- Google Adwords Conversion Tag.
- Google Adwords Remarketing Tag.
- Facebook Pixel code.
- Crazyegg tracking code.
- Inspectlet tracking code.
- Any other custom HTML/Javascript code.
To sum up, Google Tag Manager lets you manage various Javascript tracking codes (a.k.a. Tags) on your website. Google Analytics tracking code is one of those tags.
Example
As I have previously pointed out, Google Analytics is a Tag itself. According to GA instructions, you need to place GA tracking code on every page of your website. A sample tracking code should look like this:
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<script> (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,'script','https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga'); ga('create', 'UA-XXXXXXXX-1', 'auto'); ga('send', 'pageview'); </script> |
Google Tag Manager offers a default Google Analytics tag template, so setting it up is fairly easy. After you installed GTM on your website, go to Tags.
- Click New
- Click Tag Configuration block and choose tag template – Universal analytics
- Add Google Analytics Settings Variable. If you’re new to it, here’s a guide.
- Keep Track Type as Pageview and click Triggering section.
- Choose All pages.
Congratulations! You just created a Google Analytics Pageview tag in Google Tag Manager. It will track pageviews on all pages which have GTM container snippet installed. All pageviews will be sent to Google Analytics property UA-XXXXXXX).
Google Tag Manager vs Google Analytics: Events
In Google Analytics all events are displayed in the event report (Behavior → Events). They often represent interactions that happened on your webpage. The data for this report is populated from Event hits which are sent from your website to Google Analytics’ servers. Prior to the birth of Tag Management systems (like GTM) Event hits had to be initiated by small Javascript codes placed in your website. Here’s an example:
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ga('send', 'event', [eventCategory], [eventAction], [eventLabel], [eventValue]); |
As you can see, this snippet of code contains eventCategory, eventAction, eventLabel and eventValue (optional). After a particular action occurs on your website (e.g. user submits “Contact us” form), the Google Analytics Event will be fired and the corresponding data will be passed onto Google Analytics, for example:
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ga('send', 'event', 'Form submission', 'Contact form', 'https://www.example.com/contact-us'); |
You can track those events in GA Real-time GA reports.
Now let’s talk about Google Tag Manager events. In order to see them enable GTM’s Preview and Debug mode by clicking the Preview button in the top right corner of Google Tag Manager interface.
After you enable Preview and Debug mode, a large orange notification banner will appear in GTM user interface.
Once the preview mode is enabled, navigate to the site where Google Tag Manager Container code is placed and you will see a debug console window at the bottom of browser showing detailed information about your tags, including their firing status and what data is being processed. If it didn’t appear, read the guide explaining how to fix GTM preview mode.
On the left side of Preview and Debug console, you should see a list of some vague definitions. These, my friend, are Google Tag Manager Events.
They actually play a very important role within GTM – you can fire your Tags (scripts from various marketing tools) based on these Google Tag Manager events. Here are few examples to make it easier to comprehend:
- A Pageview Google Tag Manager Event can be used as a trigger to fire Google Analytics Pageview Tag.
- A gtm.linkClick GTM event (which happens when a visitor clicks any link on your website) can trigger a Google Analytics Event Tag (which sends a particular event to GA event reports).
- A gtm.formSubmit GTM event (which happens when a visitor submits a form) can trigger another Google Analytics Event Tag (which sends an event with the data of submitted form to GA event reports). gtm.formSubmit event can also be used as a trigger to fire a Google Adwords Conversion Tag.
- Since all Google Tag Manager events are populated in Data Layer, you can also ask your developer to fire custom Google Tag Manager events (a.k.a. “Data Layer Events”).
To sum up, Google Tag Manager event is an interaction on your website that is spotted by GTM and then placed in the Data Layer (p.s. Data Layer is automatically created on your website when GTM container code is implemented and published). That interaction on your website can be used as a trigger (condition) to fire your marketing tags (scripts), e.g. Facebook Pixel, Google Analytics Events, Mixpanel Events, Google Adwords Tags, etc.
So as you can see, Google Tag Manager is the middleman in your Digital Analytics implementation. It observes interactions that occur on your website, creates GTM events and then uses them to fire tags (e.g. Google Analytics Event). Although the term Event is the same in both Google products, in Google Tag Manager a GTM Event is a trigger, while GA Event is a Tag.
Google Tag Manager VS Google Analytics: Conclusion
I hope this blog post made sense to you, although some parts of it might look really tricky. Here are main points that should be emphasized once more when it comes to comparing Google Tag Manager vs Google Analytics:
- Google Tag Manager does not replace Google Analytics. Instead, it helps users to easily add Google Analytics tracking codes (tags) to your website, deploy GA event code snippets and define rules, when each tag must fire.
- Google Tag Manager is the middle-man of your digital analytics implementation on any website. If you want to add Google Analytics Tracking code or events, it’s recommended to do so with GTM, because you don’t need to do constant changes in website’s code thus deploy changes faster.
- Google Tag Manager can exist without Google Analytics and vice-versa. Your developers can hard-code Google Analytics codes directly to your website. But if you constantly publish need changes, only developers can help you here. While with GTM you could add/edit/remove your Google Analytics Tracking codes all by yourself. You can also use Google Tag Manager to add Facebook, Adwords or any other tracking scripts to your website (leaving Google Analytics behind).
- Google Tag Manager Events are used as triggers which define when a certain tag must be fired. Google Analytics event in this context is a Tag. Example: GTM event formSubmission can be used as a trigger to fire a GA event tag called “Form submission”.
If you feel that “Google Tag Manager vs Google Analytics” topic is still not clear, post a comment below and I’ll see how I can help you.
Thanks Julius for such a wonderful post,Now it’s very clear to me about google analytics and google tag manager.
Keep rocking !
Hey! Thanks for this.
Question. If I already have GA and Facebook pixel installed on my website, do I need to add them in GTM? If I add them will they be on there twice? Is it better to have them through the tag manager? If I leave them as is, will I be able to create the same type of event tracking through GTM?
Thanks for your help.
Hey,
Q: If I already have GA and Facebook pixel installed on my website, do I need to add them in GTM?
A: GTM is not necessary here. You can continue using GA and Facebook Pixel without GTM installed.
Q: If I add them will they be on there twice? Is it better to have them through the tag manager?
A: If you leave GA and Pixel as they are (hardcoded) and also install them via GTM, they will be duplicated. E.g. instead of 1 page view you’ll get two page views.
Q: Is it better to have them through the tag manager?
A: Yes, it is. You’ll be able to add/edit/remove events/tags by yourself. If you leave GA and Facebook hardcoded on your website, only developers will be able to change their implementation.
Q: If I leave them as is, will I be able to create the same type of event tracking through GTM?
A: If you leave FB Pixel as it is and also implement it via GTM, you’ll get errors. FB Pixel cannot be fired twice on the same page. You need keep only one implementation: either hardcoded on the website or via GTM.
As for GA, you can use them both but the result might be unstable and give unexpected results. It’s better to choose only one. IMHO, GA via GTM is the way you should choose..
Julius
Julius,
Thanks so much for this info!!! Incredibly helpful
Nice article! Do you think it’s better practice to put the GA tracking code inside GTM or for both codes to live separately on a website?
Hey, it’s better to install GA via GTM. That’s the whole point.
After you implement GA via GTM, you’ll be able to add/edit/remove tracking codes anytime you want and usually without developer’s input. Here’s a list of various Google Tag Manager templates that will help you track a lot of interactions in no time.
This was extremely helpful. Thanks for the clear explanation. Keep up the good work!
If I am currently tracking through GA and wish to switch over to GTM will i lose any historical data in GA?
Hey, you will not lose historical data because you can connect your existing GA account via GTM.
Gotcha. Thank you very much! This cleared up a lot!
Hi,
“Q: If I already have GA and Facebook pixel installed on my website, do I need to add them in GTM?
A: GTM is not necessary here. You can continue using GA and Facebook Pixel without GTM installed.”
I got confused at this point. So…If I already have a GA account ( I did not add facebook pixel and I’m trying not to because I believe GA is better for analytics, but it looks like you can’t post a fb ad without fb pixel even though they say it’s optional…somehow you have to activate it at the end) So what you’re saying in your answer is if you have GA installed on your website then GTM is not necessary? So I guess my question is in this case when I already have GA installed on my website (via code I added in the dashboard in WP) what is the best way to connect to GTM ( or do I need a new GA account in order to start using GTM?
and yes! Thank you for the very informative post 🙂
Hey,
The best way to install GA via GTM (if GA is already added directly to website’s code) is:
– Add GTM container snippet to all pages of the website (you can do that with DuracellTomi’s GTM plugin for WP https://wordpress.org/plugins/duracelltomi-google-tag-manager/).
– Set all Google Analytics tags via GTM.
– Remove all hardcoded GA tracking codes from the WP (which are directly coded in website’s source code).
– Publish GTM container.
Lunametrics have published an amazing article about migration from Plain GA to GA via GTM https://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2015/07/16/safely-migrating-to-google-tag-manager/
And no, you do not need to create a new GA account. You can safely continue using the old account. But be careful, the migration process isn’t very easy.
And thanks for the positive comment.
Cheers
Thak you for your quick reply, I really appreciate this!
Cheers 🙂
Why when i checked my website with Google Tag Assistant, Google analytics tag is displayed twice and both tags have got different property ID.
One tracking ID is mine, but i don’t have a clue, about the second GA ID. How to remove the wrong GA ID?
Hey, could you give me a link to the website where this issue occurs? There are many reasons why this might happen. One of them, you migrated to GTM but left the old Google Analytics code hardcoded in website’s code.
here is the website http://www.andonpokayoke.com
This website is in maintenance mode. And on that page Tag Assistant sees only one Google Analytics code and no Google Tag Manager. So my guess is that you’re having two IDs because, obviously, the second ID is hardcoded in website’s source code.
Remove that and you should be good to go.
Where can i find the hardcoded in website’s source code?
See https://imgur.com/MEjOhTQ , My tag assistant show my Google tag manager. And see https://imgur.com/y9kNQvq i can not find the wrong GA ID.
A video.js file initiates Google Analytics tracking. Here’s the link to that file. Consult your developer how to find it on your server. http://andonpokayoke.com/wp-content/plugins/maintenance-pro/frontend/_bgvideo/_videojs.js?ver=4.9 (open this link and use search. You’ll see that there is a UA-XXXXX tracking code there).
Maybe there’s some sort of plugin you’re using? Anyway, my powers end here. You need to either find that file or consult a developer who could do that.
I will follow your advice. Thank you
I have 2 questions related to GA and GTM events
1. When should i use GTM events or GA events?
2. If i’m tracking and event in GTM should i still track that same event in GA?
Hi,
GTM event itself is useless unless you use it as a trigger.
GA event’s purpose is to pass data to Google Analytics.
1. So if you want to send data to Google Analytics, you need to use both GTM and GA events. In this case, GTM event is a trigger/condition which can dispatch a Google Analytics event (if you have created a Google Analytics event tag in GTM).
If you use other analytics tools, like Mixpanel, then you should use only GTM events which would dispatch Mixpanel tags.
2. GTM event is just a bridge between an interaction on a website and 3rd party tool, like Google Analytics. You cannot track GTM events only, that does not make sense. You can track events with other analytics tools, like Google Analytics, and the purpose of GTM events here is just to indicate WHEN Google Analytics events should be delivered.
I hope that makes sense.
Say that you have created a Google Analytics Event Tag which fires on all Link Click events. Here’s what happens next:
– User clicks a link
– GTM Event gtm.linkClick appears in the GTM Preview and Debug console.
– GTM spots that gtm.linkClick event occurred and fires Google Analytics Event tag.
As you can see, without GTM event, no GA event would have fired. Also, instead of GA event, there could have been any other tag, like Adwords remarketing, etc.
Hi Julius,
Thanks for this post. GTM vs GA is quite clear to understand the differences between both snippet libraries.
in the same manner, some people ask himself what differences are between Google Analytics, Universal Analytics and Google Tags Analytics (analytics.js, ga.js and gtag.js) ? it’s a little bit confusing for a beginner… gtm.js can be combined with any of the three (knowing that the migration between Google Analytics and Universal Analytics is advisabled).
*sorry for my English which is not perfect
Bruno.
Hey Bruno, don’t worry about your English.
– ga.js is very old Google Analytics library (Classic Google Analytics). No new projects should use it, so it’s better if you just skip it, if possible. That’s a legacy stuff.
– analytics.js is the library of Universal Analytics. It’s a newer solution, compared to ga.js, supports more features that are currently available in the Universal Analytics.
– gtag.js is the latest version of Google Analytics tracking code which works like a mini Google Tag Manager and, when loaded, calls analytics.js, etc. Its documentation is still poor (knowing that Google published it very hasty due to Apple’s decision to start blocking 3rd party tracking cookies.
If you’re using Google Tag Manager, you shouldn’t worry about analytics.js or gtag.js, because when you implement GA tracking, you need just tracking id (UA-XXXXX-XX) and the rest is taken care of by GTM.
I hope this explanation makes sense to you.
Hi Julius,
I have a question. I am having requirement to apply GTM on my website. Till now, no tags, no data attributes has been added.
Should i start directly with GTM and add data attributes for GTM in the markup ?
Please let me know the flow.
Thanks in advance,
Harshit
Hey, I’m not sure I understood the question. Firstly, you need to install GTM’s container code on the website.
Then think about what you’re about to track. Do a tag implementation plan (say, an excel sheet) with what you want to track and which tags should you use.
Then start adding tags one by one. I always start with Google Analytics Pageview. Then add some events.
If you want to have some custom data, ask developers to push that data to the data layer. Then you’ll be able to read that data and use it in tags/triggers/variables.
Does that make sense to you?
Hi Julius,
I am getting what your are saying. But I have a very basic question.
My website is new. It is not having any tag or data attributes in its html markup. So, to start with it, do I need to go to each Html markup and add data attributes there ?
It will be a first time implementation of GTM, so do we need to edit each and every markup manually to add data attributes there ? Or it can also be achieved by using GTM tags, so developers don’t need to edit every html ?
Thanks,
Harshit
Now I understood your question. Although it’s a good practice to ask a developer to add “data-” attributes to important website elements, you can start implementing GTM without them. Since I haven’t seen the website you’re working on + I don’t know what your tracking goals are, it’s hard to say whether you can track everything important without developer’s input.
Anyway, start implementing GTM now, you’ll see where developer’s input is needed and where you can track stuff autonomously.
Thank You so much for such descriptive answer. It helped a lot. I will try the approach, and will ask you, if something got stuck.
Thanks,
Harshit
Hello Julius,
Thank you for your support till now.
I successfully created GTM configuration with working tags. Now I got stuck in something. I am facing two problems.
1. When my data-attribute is added in class, the tag is not firing.
For ex:
I have created a trigger using “All Elements” and used variable equals “xyz”.
2. I am not able to fire tag when, it is setup on a click event , which redirects your page to another URL on click. When I click on the link, it redirects me to another URL, and my tags remain unfired, and GTM debug got refreshed.
I am using “All Elements” click trigger for this also.
Please advise me, what I am doing is incorrect.
Thanks,
Harshit
Sorry, forgot to add:
1. When my data-attribute is added in button class, the tag is not firing.
For ex: button data-attribute=”xyz” data-label=”abc”
Hey,
1. If you want to debug link clicks, click them with the CTRL button (on the keyboard) pressed. This will open the link in the new tab and the old tab’s preview and debug mode will still have the data.
2. If you want to access “data-attributes”, read this blog post about the auto-event variable – https://www.analyticsmania.com/post/auto-event-variable-google-tag-manager/
Hi Julius,
Thank you so much. Now I am able to track the tags with CTRL button.
Right now, I am having only 1 issue left.
When my tags should have dynamic value, as my data-attribute value is also generating run time, in an “li” tag. I am not able to achieve it, to get the dynamic value saved in tags.
Hi Julius
We had our GA tracking tag in the source code and we moved it now to the GTM container (in the header), which is only foreseen for GA.
Other tags (for affiliation etc.) will be put into a second GTM container in an iframe.
Before we switched the GA tracking into GTM we had on average ca. 6% missing conversions in GA compared to the number of conversions in our own back office.
Now, with GA tracing in GTM, we are on 13% and it is not a random result due to a few data (sampling).
We are actually only live in one country as a pilot: http://www.smartphoto.co.uk
Until now we did not find the reason for this difference.
Can you give me an idea what the possible cause(s) for this increase of missing transactions could be? (it cannot be a GA sampling issue, we see it in the data and the traffic on this domain is still small to reach any hit limits)
Hi, it’s hard to tell without knowing the full context. This is what I do when I migrate from the hardcoded GA to GTM:
– I create a mirror GA property where I implement tracking via GTM (while the old implementation is still working)
– Then I accumulated data in both GA Properties (the new one and the old one).
– Then I compare their data and if something is different by more than 3%, I keep digging. By having two different properties I can slice data from various angles and find possible reasons why does it happen. You can read more about it here https://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2015/07/16/safely-migrating-to-google-tag-manager/
The discrepancy between old and new implementation usually means either the old tracking was inaccurate and numbers are too bloated or you’ve missed something in the new tracking.
Hay Julius,
I have a website with no GA or GTM installed. Normally you would use the tracking code for GA so GA is seeing the website.
But in the case of installing GA and GTM together, I guess you would set up GTM first and then GA and instead of using GA tracking code you refer or link GA to GTM tracking code somehow to avoid repeated code.
Thanks for your info so far.
W.
My question would be what the correct method would be.
sorry for that.
W.
Yes, first, I’d install GTM code on a page and then would implement Google Analytics tracking through GTM interface.
Cheers
This post is by far the most complete and clear content I’ve read. Thank you, Julius. Now I finally can understand what are their differences.
You’re welcome!
[…] Analytics Mania lays this out perfectly, “Imagine that Google Tag Manager is a toolbox, where you keep all your tools: a ruler (Google Analytics), a hammer (Google Adwords), etc.” […]
Thank you Julius for answering my question.
I want to create a trigger in GMT. But the screens in you tube videos & blogs are different then what appearing in my account. Was it because we have not added the GMT in our website ?
There is only ‘Untitled Trigger’ and ‘Save’ Button. I tried pasting the screen shot but was not getting pasted.
I need to track lot of events like click button, book an event, submit button. Will all these start tracking once we add one GMT account?
Hi, it depends on how old those videos are. GTM interface changed at least a couple of times. Here’s a video with relevant information https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28d60ejfk3s
Thanks, Julius, for this information. It helps clarify not only the difference, but the synergy possible between GA and GTM.
How to track in amp page? Can you explain it
I don’t have a guide for that but Simo has, so feel free to read that https://www.simoahava.com/analytics/accelerated-mobile-pages-via-google-tag-manager/