What is a Tag Manager?
A Tag Manager is a powerful tool for managing and streamlining all your website’s tracking and marketing snippets in one centralised platform. These snippets, typically JavaScript code, are added as Tags from the Tag Manager interface.
Triggers are used to define when these Tags should execute, allowing the Tag Manager to automatically inject the code snippets into your website during runtime. This eliminates the need for manual edits to your website’s code.
Tag Manager Components
With a Tag Manager, you can easily make changes to your website without relying on a developer. This means faster implementation of changes and new features and quicker access to insights and data.
-
Tag: A snippet of code (usually JavaScript or HTML) that Tag Manager will automatically add to your website code. Tags can be analytics scripts, conversion tracking codes, or marketing pixels.
-
Trigger: A Trigger defines when a tag should be fired. For example, a tag might be set to fire when a user clicks a specific button or visits a certain page.
-
Variables: Variables are optional and used to interact with the data layer and retrieve data that can be used by tags and triggers. Variables can store information like click IDs, page URLs, or custom user data.
The illustration shows the Tag Manager container configuration to track clicks on a specific button. Once the Matomo container code is added to your website’s code, you can develop your tracking setup through a user-friendly interface.
When a visitor clicks on a button (identified by click ID=5123), a variable collects the data and a trigger activates tags to send tracking data to third-party services for analytics, marketing, or other purposes.
Key Features of a Tag Manager
- Dynamic Modifications: Tags can be updated or modified directly within the Tag Manager without requiring changes to the container script embedded in your website.
- Backend Management: All Tags, Triggers, and Variables can be configured and managed entirely through the Tag Manager interface.
- Runtime Data Collection: The Tag Manager can retrieve data dynamically from your website at runtime.
Tag Manager Use Cases
With a Tag Manager, you can easily implement features such as:
- Monitor website traffic and user behaviour with core tracking features like page views, session data, and visitor metrics.
- Track conversions on key actions like purchases or signups. View the animated tutorial below.
- Remarketing to retarget visitors with personalised ads.
- Track Ecommerce interactions.
- Add custom code snippets required for your marketing or analytics setup, and more!
You can extend your tracking capabilities by adding enhanced features such as Custom Dimensions and User ID tracking.
- Configure the Matomo Analytics tracking tag to send Custom Dimension data to Matomo. This allows you to collect and analyse additional information about your visitors or actions on your website, such as user roles or product categories.
- User ID tracking enables you to identify and track individual users across sessions and devices. By using a Tag Manager, you can dynamically configure and pass User IDs to Matomo, ensuring accurate reporting of user behaviour while respecting privacy regulations. Read more on setting the User ID using Matomo Tag Manager.
Track Button Clicks Using Matomo Tag Manager
Tracking specific button clicks enables you to monitor user interactions with important elements on your website, such as a Sign Up button. This animated tutorial demonstrates the steps to configure a trigger and tag in Matomo Tag Manager to track clicks on a button identified by its Click ID.
