{"id":122895,"date":"2025-03-09T21:17:52","date_gmt":"2025-03-09T21:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/analytics\/100-google-tag-manager-learnings\/"},"modified":"2025-03-09T21:17:52","modified_gmt":"2025-03-09T21:17:52","slug":"100-google-tag-manager-learnings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=122895","title":{"rendered":"100+ Google Tag Manager Learnings"},"content":{"rendered":"


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I\u2019ve always been proud to avoid the typical headline clickbait of \u201cUltimate guide to pigeon care\u201d, \u201cAll you need to know about the Great Vowel Shift\u201d, \u201cDid you know that you\u2019ve been smoking peyote wrong your whole life?\u201d. I\u2019m ready to make an exception now by adding a BIG WHOPPING NUMBER to the title. You see, the amount of knowledge one can accumulate about anything they do on a daily basis is mind-blowing. It helps if you write a blog about the topic, since creative output is a great way to organize your thoughts. It also helps to be active in community support, since problem-solving is an excellent way to accumulate new skills and to hone the edge of your existing talent.<\/p>\n

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\"Google<\/p>\n

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Now, I already have 50+ GTM Tips<\/a> written, so it\u2019s not like this is a novel idea, even on this blog. But this time I just wanted to write short, byte-sized things I\u2019ve learned along the way, and I want to share them with you.<\/p>\n

As you can read from the outrageously baiting title, there should be 100+ tips, but I only enumerated an even 100. That\u2019s because I want YOU to add your ideas to the end of this post, and let\u2019s see if we can keep it going. Yes, it\u2019s my shameful attempt to delegate content creation to the community. I am guilty of that, too, now.<\/p>\n


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\n Subscribe to the Simmer newsletter<\/a> to get the latest news and content from Simo Ahava into your email inbox!\n <\/p>\n

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Container JavaScript Snippet<\/h2>\n

1. Initializes the dataLayer<\/code><\/h3>\n

The JavaScript snippet part of the GTM container has one very important function (among others). It initializes the window.dataLayer<\/code> array. Thus, if you haven\u2019t initialized a dataLayer<\/code> object yourself, the container snippet will do this for you. This ensures that dataLayer.push()<\/code> works within GTM.<\/p>\n

2. Creates the script loader for the GTM library<\/h3>\n

Perhaps even more importantly, the JavaScript container snippet creates a <\/code> element, which loads the Google Tag Manager container library for your GTM container ID from Google\u2019s servers.\n

\n \n \"GTM\n <\/a>\n<\/div>\n

3. JavaScript snippet should be in but can be (almost) anywhere<\/h3>\nThe latest (and best) recommendation<\/em> for placing the JavaScript snippet is to put it in the of the document. This helps GTM load as early as possible, resulting in greater tracking accuracy. However, you can execute the JavaScript snippet pretty much any time during the page load and anywhere in your site code where execution of JavaScript is possible. The sooner the library loads, though, the more accurate your data collection will be.\n

4. Pushes the initial event: 'gtm.js'<\/code><\/h3>\nThe JavaScript snippet also pushes the initial event: 'gtm.js'<\/code> into dataLayer<\/code>. This is an important GTM event. It is used by the All Pages and Page View triggers. Any Data Layer variables you want to use with these triggers must be added to dataLayer<\/code> before the JavaScript container snippet is executed<\/em>.\n
\n \n \"event:\n <\/a>\n<\/div>\n

5. Multiple container snippets on a page are supported<\/h3>\nYou can add multiple JavaScript container snippets on a page. This is officially supported<\/a>. The caveat is that they all need to use the same dataLayer<\/code> name.\n\n

Container