Google Tag Manager (GTM)

We work with your cookie consent tool, or suggest one we've worked with, and connect it to your tags so they follow the visitor's choice. How that's wired depends on the project, so we test what your tags actually do. We don't write legal text or give legal advice, so your privacy policy needs sign-off from someone qualified.

A CRM is where your contacts and deals live. Lead flow is how an enquiry gets there: the form, the tracking behind it and the follow-up. We connect them so each lead arrives with its source attached.

We check the data, not just the setup. GTM Preview can look fine while something is wrong, so we look at the real events the next day. The usual suspects:

• Click IDs: the Click ID Restorer power-up can write the word "stape" where Google's click ID should be. We've seen it on live sites. Preview won't show it, BigQuery will.
• Request limits: a container over its plan limit can pause tracking.
• Double counting: Meta needs the same event ID from the pixel and the server.
• Wrong events: the server passes on whatever the browser sends.

Our ongoing management service includes these checks.

It cuts the conversions lost to ad blockers and browser limits, but it doesn't remove the loss, and we don't promise a percentage. With server-side tracking, events go to a server container that sends them on to GA4, Google Ads and Meta, and each conversion carries one event ID so the platforms count it once. On our own site we load the tags from our own domain through Stape's Custom Loader, and the gain is resilience to ad blockers.

We keep the container lean, because what slows a page is mostly what's inside it: too many tags, old tags nobody removed, and heavy scripts firing before the visitor sees anything.

• Take out tags for platforms you've stopped using.
• Fire tags on the event that needs them, not on every page.
• Use a server container, so the page sends one stream of events rather than loading a script for each platform. Tag Manager itself still loads.

On our own site, GTM loads after the page has finished loading and marketing tags wait for the visitor's choice in the cookie banner. Our technical tracking service covers the container set-up.

The data layer is a list of events and details your website writes for Tag Manager to read. Instead of guessing from the page, GTM waits for your site to say "a form was submitted" or "the booking window opened".

On our own site, opening the booking window pushes booking_open and which button was used. A form that goes through pushes its ID and name. Neither carries a name, email or phone number.

Our technical tracking service includes the data layer design.

Tag Manager lets you set access for each person on each container, from no access up to publish. Give people the lowest level that lets them do their job. When we work in your container, we make changes in a separate workspace and publish only once a change is agreed.

• No access means they can't see the container.
• Read lets someone look but not change anything.
• Edit lets them build changes in a workspace.
• Approve lets them approve a workspace's changes into a version.
• Publish lets them push a version live.

Every publish becomes a numbered version, so you can see what changed and go back to an earlier one. Our technical tracking service covers the Tag Manager set-up.

A trigger tells Tag Manager when to fire a tag. A page view, a click, a form submission, a scroll or an event your site sends can all be triggers, and the most reliable is an event your site sends on purpose.

Our own site uses custom events only:

• booking_open, pushed when someone opens the booking window.
• A form event, pushed when a form has gone through, so a lead tag fires once.

Neither carries a name, email or phone number. Our technical tracking service covers the Tag Manager set-up.

We start from the action that counts, usually a form, a booking or a purchase. Your site pushes a named event to the data layer when it happens, a trigger in Tag Manager listens for that event, and the tags it fires send the conversion to GA4, Google Ads and Meta with the same event ID. We test it in a set order, and we don't treat Preview alone as proof.

It puts all your tags in one place, so adding or changing one doesn't mean a developer editing the site. Google doesn't charge for it.

• Add, change or pause tags from one screen.
• Preview a change before it goes live.
• Every publish is a numbered version you can go back to.
• Set a level for each person, from no access to publish.

It's not strictly essential for a site with a single tag that never changes. Once you run ads on more than one platform, it earns its place. Our technical tracking service sets it up.

Usually because something overwrites it on the way in: a form that doesn't pass the campaign, a chatbot, an import, or a duplicate record. The ad then looks worse than it is.

It's a wiring job. We keep the click ID and campaign tags with the lead from the form to the CRM, so the source survives.