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What Digital Professionals Need to Know About Tag Management

Posted
June 17, 2019

This post is contributed by Burtch Works’ web and digital analytics recruiting team.

With companies increasing their focus on methods of attribution, lead acquisition, and traffic monitoring for their digital consumers, many are increasingly looking for digital hires that are skilled at tag management to make this happen.Burtch Works wrote about the surge in demand for tag management skills a few years ago, but in case you’re looking to learn more about this area of expertise, I thought I would share a few thoughts about how tag management works, why it’s important, and its impact on the digital space.

What Tag Management Is and How It Works

Tag management uses a variety of snippets of code across different web pages to track the consumer experience and enable a multitude of different technologies (such as personalization, customer experience tools, web analytics platforms etc.).A tag manager is a software platform that allows for updating and otherwise adjusting this plethora of tags. Some of these are more “plug and play” and user friendly than others, allowing digital professionals to manage tags without necessarily being expert coders.

Some examples of tag managers include:

Google Tag ManagerAdobe Dynamic Tag Management (DTM)/Adobe LaunchTealiumTag CommanderPiwik PRO Tag ManagerQubit OpenTagSignalEnsightenMezzobitIBM Digital Data Exchange (DDX)The most commonly-requested tag managers my clients have asked for are Adobe Launch/DTM, Google Tag Manager and Tealium, however, having some knowledge of HTML or Javascript certainly won’t hurt you, especially since the more self-sufficient you can be with technical tools, the more opportunities tend to open up as a result.

Why is Tag Management Important?

In order to get a comprehensive view of all the components of your digital ecosystem and their performance, tag management is crucial, and is especially critical in the eCommerce space. Companies want to know if their campaigns are performing as intended, if their SEO is improving, and to be able to track the customer journey from page to page.Since tag management enhances website tracking, having someone on staff who can quickly identify issues can help address these problems before they have a chance to cause too much disruption.

404 Brand Not Found? In the event that a traffic issue isn’t immediately identified, try using your 404 Error Page to redirect consumers. This can help stave off site abandonment, and keeping the page comical or otherwise on-brand can turn a potentially frustrating situation into a memorable one.

The Impact of Tag Management for Digital Professionals

If you’re working in the digital space and considering whether familiarizing yourself with tag management is beneficial to you, not just your company, here are a few points to consider:

1. Tag management allows you to better understand the customer journey

If this sounds familiar, it’s because this is one of the key skills I highlighted last year that companies are searching for. Tag management allows you to better track how consumers are interacting with your website – their path to purchase, frustration points, etc. – and will help you identify which opportunities to pursue.

2. Understanding the customer journey helps you make better recommendations

Being able to glean strategic insights from data and use those to make predictions or recommendations doesn’t just help your company – it shows your value to the team! But, in order to be specific you often need to have a holistic view of which channels are the most impactful and how they could potentially be improved, and tag management can help you do this.

3. Google is ubiquitous, and available if you want to learn

Although there are many tag management tools available, Google Tag Manager is a great place to get started and has free online learning resources available if you’re looking to get your feet wet. If you’re looking to learn something new, I always recommend speaking with your manager first to see if there is a particular tool or learning system they would support!I hope this tag management overview was enough to get you started, but if you’re looking to know even more (or compare different tools), I know there is tons more information just a web search away. Good luck and happy tagging!Curious to see whether we have any roles that fit your experience, or looking to hire web and/or digital analytics experts for your team? Feel free to connect with us.

Learn more about the top 2019 trends in the digital and web analytics space – as well as their implications for professionals and employers – in the video below!