Updated: July 16th, 2025

If you’re a frequent user of Google Tag Manager, you’re likely always looking for ways to improve your performance, catch bugs faster, and simplify your process. Adding some extensions and tools to your workflow can improve efficiency, help you avoid common pitfalls, and create a smoother tracking process.

If my guess is right, you’ll enjoy these Google Tag Manager extensions and tools! The best part? They’re all completely free! So why not give them a shot and see how they can improve your game?

All these tools are displayed in no particular order:

• #1. Google Tag Manager Extensions
  • Tag Assistant
  • Adswerve – dataLayer Inspector+
  • GTM Variable Builder for Chrome
  • GTM Tools
  • Stape GTM Helper
  • GTMFixer
  • GTM Utility
  • Analytics Debugger
  • Google Analytics Debugger
  • Redirect Path
  • TagHound – Analytics/GTM/Pixel Debugger
  • Omnibug
• #2. Pixel Helpers
  • Meta Pixel Helper
  • X Pixel Helper
  • Pixel Helper for LinkedIn
  • TikTok Pixel Helper
• #3. Additional Tools
  • Regular Expression Search
  • Developer Tools
  • Regex 101
• Bonus: Game changer for GA4 users
• Final Words

#1. Google Tag Manager Extensions

Note that the Google Tag Manager extensions below are not listed in any particular order. For each extension, I will provide a short explanation of its purpose and a link to the Chrome store so you can easily download it if you think it is something that will help you out!

You do not need to install every single one of these extensions to be effective. The goal is to build a small, personalized “toolkit” that fits the way you work. Some people might only need Tag Assistant and a Pixel Helper, while others who deal with complex data layers might find the Adswerve Data Layer Inspector indispensable. I recommend starting with one or two that address your most common challenges and then gradually adding others as you feel the need.

Tag Assistant

Tag Assistant is a crowd favorite that has undergone many changes in the last few years. Previously decommissioned, it is now back! The Tag Assistant extension works alongside Tag Assistant (GTM Preview mode) to help find any issues with Google Tag Manager.

Google has announced that it is moving all the functionality of Tag Assistant Companion (the previous replacement for Tag Assistant) to Tag Assistant. If you have the Tag Assistant Companion extension, it will be automatically uninstalled in the next few months. If you are reading this guide in the future, this might have already happened.

Currently, the troubleshooting features of the Tag Assistant extension look quite limited (compared to the previous version). I am not sure if/when Google will extend that (because when you click “Troubleshoot tag” in the extension, it opens tagassistant.google.com in a new browser tab. Maybe it’s Google’s intention, after all.

Nevertheless, is still useful (at least to some extent). For example, when enabling GTM preview mode, Tag Assistant opens your website in a new tab (rather than a new window). You can also debug multiple tabs simultaneously, providing an enhanced GTM preview mode for troubleshooting Google tags.

Get Tag Assistant for Chrome

Adswerve – dataLayer Inspector+

This is one of my favorite extensions. What I like about it is that the extension can add your GTM container to a site, track the data sent to the data layer, diagnose common issues, and offers a bunch of other features. You can learn much more about using this extension in my Intermediate GTM course.

This extension previously had an “Insert GTM container” feature that allowed you to add your GTM container to a website easily. Although this feature no longer exists, you can still use the “Inject Code” feature to inject the GTM tracking script. Visit their website to learn more.

Get Adswerve – dataLayer Inspector+ for Chrome

GTM Variable Builder for Chrome

GTM Variable Builder is a Chrome extension that lets you highlight website elements like text, product IDs, or prices and generate JavaScript code to capture them. This useful plugin enables you to easily create Custom JavaScript variables that retrieve values of particular website elements. If you’re unfamiliar with the DOM variable, feel free to use this extension.

How does it work? Open the JavaScript console in Chrome, highlight any element on a website, and click the extension icon. You’ll get the JavaScript function that you can use in a GTM Custom JavaScript variable.

Get GTM Variable Builder for Chrome

GTM Tools

GTM Tools is another valuable resource from Stape (who have taken over from Simo Ahava). This time, it’s a hosted web tool rather than a Google Tag Manager Chrome extension designed to assist with auditing, managing, or cloning GTM containers. It features three primary functionalities features:

• Container visualization: This allows you to identify the container elements that are frequently used or completely unused.
• Inspect container: This shows you a list of all tags, triggers, and variables in a container.
• Clone container: This feature lets you make a copy of a container. While you can export a GTM container (we discuss this further at the end of this article), if you want to copy the container, you need to set up a new container to import the contents to, so this tool removes this step.

Check out GTM Tools

Stape GTM Helper

This extension is specifically for debugging server-side tagging in the GTM preview mode. It automatically highlights the syntax of JSON data, making it easier to read and debug. Working with complex JSON structures can be confusing, so the Stape GTM Helper helps users spot errors, such as missing commas or incorrect formatting.

Get Stape GTM Helper for Chrome

GTMFixer

GTMFixer is a Chrome extension that enhances Google Tag Manager by making it easier to organize and manage tags, triggers, and variables. Key features include search and filter tools, tag error highlighting, unique ID appending for GA4 tags, and an event name checker to ensure consistency. GTMFixer streamlines workflows by simplifying the interface and focusing on relevant elements.

Get GTM Fixer for Chrome

GTM Utility

GTM Utility is an experimental tool designed to audit Google Tag Manager. It provides an alternative overview highlighting the connections between variables, triggers, and tags in your GTM container.

The GTM container visualizer provides a flowchart illustrating the relationships between different elements and a list of all configured dimensions, metrics, and parameters for Google Analytics, Google Ads conversion and remarketing tags, and Floodlight tags.

If you’re more of a visual learner, this could be a helpful way to assess the foundation of your analytics.

Check out GTM Utility

The following extensions are useful even if you don’t use Google Tag Manager. However, I use GTM for all implementations, so these tools are definitely useful in that context.

Analytics Debugger

An amazing Chrome extension developed by David Vallejo that eases the process of Google Tag Manager debugging (but also provides support for Google Analytics, Tealium, Piwik Pro/Matomo, Adobe tools, and some marketing Pixels). Among many useful features, here are the most noteworthy (in my opinion):

• It lets you copy Data Layer pushes in a formatted way,
• It provides the ability to view Data Layer pushes of previous pages, and
• Simplifies GA4 E-commerce debugging (I’ve used this GTM extension in the GA4 E-commerce module of my Intermediate GTM Course. A real-time-saver.)

These and other useful features are waiting for you in this GTM extension, so definitely try it out.

You may have noticed that this list contains several different debugging tools. While many have overlapping features, each one offers a unique interface and its own special strengths. Some are excellent for inspecting e-commerce data, others excel at visualizing the data layer, and some support a wider range of marketing tags. There is no single “best” tool for everyone. The right choice often comes down to personal preference, so feel free to try a couple and see which workflow you find most intuitive.

Get Analytics Debugger for Chrome

Google Analytics Debugger

This extension lets you see what data is being passed to Google Analytics. I found it extremely useful while debugging E-commerce implementations (until David Vallejo created the Analytics Debugger extension).

It prints useful information to the JavaScript console of your Chrome browser. These messages include errors and warnings that can tell you when your analytics tracking code is incorrectly set up.

In addition, it provides a detailed breakdown of each tracking beacon sent to Google Analytics.

Get Google Analytics Debugger for Chrome

Redirect Path

This extension allows you to easily see all the redirects between two pages.

Do you have issues with UTM parameters or cross-domain tracking not working? The issue could be with a redirect that causes the loss of URL parameters needed for UTM parameters to be collected and for cross-domain tracking to work.

The Redirect Path extension can help you identify if an issue exists. Just install it, navigate from page A to page B (while debugging your cross-domain setup or a link with UTM parameters), and click the extension icon in the top right corner of your Chrome.

You can see two things here: the top section shows the original link the user clicked on, and the bottom section shows the page the user was ultimately redirected to.

In the above screenshot, the first URL contains UTMs, and the bottom section shows that the user was eventually redirected to the /password page, and the UTMs are gone. This problem is because GA4 will load on the second page (without UTMs).

Similarly, we can test cross-domain tracking. In the screenshot below, we can see that the extension shows us there was a “JavaScript” redirect.

The only solution is to work with the developers on your team. Explain the issues to them and see if there is a way they can reconfigure things to avoid the redirect.

Get Redirect Path for Chrome

TagHound – Analytics/GTM/Pixel Debugger

This is an all-in-one debugger for Google Analytics 4, Google Ads, Google Tag Manager, and marketing pixels like Meta, X, TikTok, and more (which may be helpful if you have multiple different analytics tools running on your site).

Some of the provided Google Tag Manager features include sorting tags alphabetically, highlighting tags fired multiple times, and highlighting tags with errors.

Get TagHound – Analytics/GTM/Pixel Debugger for Chrome

Omnibug

Omnibug is a Chrome extension that decodes and displays outgoing requests from digital marketing tools like Google Analytics, Google Ads, Adobe Analytics, and Tealium. It helps debugging, development, and quality assurance by presenting events in a human-readable format, with options to filter and export the data.

Get Omnibug for Chrome

#2. Pixel Helpers

The following Chrome extensions are specific to each vendor (e.g. Meta) and assist in verifying and troubleshooting their pixel installations.

Meta Pixel Helper

The Meta Pixel Helper is a troubleshooting tool for validating conversions and custom audiences. It lets you quickly verify whether the pixel works properly, determine what events were fired, and spot errors in no time.

The Meta Pixel Helper icon displays a small number indicating the number of pixel events. When clicked, a panel expands to show a detailed overview of the page’s pixels, including warnings, errors, and successes.

Whether installing Meta Pixel or tracking FB conversions with Google Tag Manager, Facebook Pixel Helper is a no-brainer and reliable debugging companion.

Get Meta Pixel Helper for Chrome

X Pixel Helper

Similarly to the Meta Pixel Helper, the X Pixel Helper does the same job, but for the Twitter Base Pixel.

With the X Pixel Helper, you can check whether the Twitter Base Pixel is implemented successfully and troubleshoot Twitter events (conversions).

Get X Pixel Helper for Chrome

Pixel Helper for LinkedIn

This plugin checks websites for correctly implementing LinkedIn Insight Tags, ensuring they are properly installed for tracking and analytics.

Get Pixel Helper for LinkedIn for Chrome

TikTok Pixel Helper

TikTok Pixel Helper is a Chrome extension that helps verify and troubleshoot TikTok Pixel installations. It checks for errors and provides recommendations to ensure proper pixel functionality on your website.

While the extension does not currently have the highest reviews, its creators appear to be actively updating it. So, if you frequently use TikTok Pixel, it may be worth looking into!

Get TikTok Pixel Helper for Chrome

#3. Additional Tools

While this article mainly focuses on extensions you can install to help you with your Google Tag Manager needs (and beyond), there are also some other noteworthy tools for GTM specialists that I want to mention.

Regular Expression Search

This extension lets you search a page using regular expressions. This can be helpful when you’re not sure exactly what you’re looking for when searching through a webpage or the page source or want to see if any elements share a specific pattern.

Get Regular Expression Search for Chrome

Developer Tools

If you’ve read some of my other articles, you will know that I frequently use developer tools. While not an extension or tool you download, developer tools are a versatile set of built-in browser tools to help you inspect and debug your site, including tracking.

Developer tools can help you check if Google Tag Manager is working, help diagnose why cross-domain tracking is not working, check that Google Ads conversion tracking is functioning properly, and much more!

To access developer tools, right-click on your webpage and select “Inspect” or (in Chrome) go to View > Developer > Developer Tools.

The Console tab of the developer tools can be very helpful for testing data layer push events. To try it out, complete an action that should trigger an event, open the developer tools, select “Console,” and enter “dataLayer” into the code line.

If everything works as intended, you should see the event listed within the data layer, along with all the corresponding parameters and data collected with it.

Regex 101

Regular expressions are special sequences of characters used to find, extract, replace, or match text. You can use regular expressions in specific cases across tags, triggers, and variables in Google Tag Manager.

Let’s say there is an element on your site that is available on multiple pages and has the same ID across all instances. Using the Element visibility trigger, you can track any time a user views an element.

However, depending on which page the user views the elements, you might want to have separate events with separate triggers. In this case, you can set “Page path matches RegEx” and put the pattern for your page.

How can you test whether your regular expression works? This is where Regex 101 comes in handy! This website lets you input your regular expression and then provides a variety of examples against which to test the pattern. As a result, you can see if your regex is acting as you expect.

Check out Regex 101

Bonus: Game-changing extension for GA4

I almost forgot to include one more extension that will solve your main GA4 headaches. It was built in early 2024, at SuperWeek. I don’t want to spoil everything but prepare to be mind-blown.

P.S. This might contain some humorous elements.

Google Tag Manager Extensions: Final Words

All great things must come to an end, even this list. I hope you found the collection of Google Tag Manager Extensions and tools useful. Have you spotted something new? Give it a try! Maybe you’ll love it. I often use:

• Tag Assistant
• Adswerve – dataLayer Inspector+
• Redirect Path
• Analytics Debugger
• Google Analytics Debugger

However, I must admit that the more experienced I become, the more I tend to use the browser’s native developer tools.

Did I miss any Google Tag Manager Extensions that you can’t imagine working without? Let me know in the comments below!