Does your Organization Need a Tag Management System?

Simply put, the answer is yes, you need a Tag Management System. For many organizations, a Tag Management System can seem like an unnecessary piece of software, but in reality, it is one of the more helpful tools in a martech arsenal. If your company is serious about tracking campaigns, complying with regulations, and reducing development costs then tag management systems are indispensable. To help explain why, let’s go over a few of the questions about tag management systems that we get asked the most. 

What is a Tag Management System?  

For those that are unfamiliar, it is a tool to help control and distribute various pieces of code (marketing trackers, conversion pixels, analytics tracking, etc.) on a website without the need to rely on development teams. While the name “tag” can be confusing, as it can have several meanings in the wider web world, at its base, it is a piece of code that is placed on a site to do something that isn’t part of the core functionality of the site. These tags are typically JavaScript. 

By using a Tag Management System, you can add code in a rule-based setup where the code will only run on certain pages or in certain situations. All of this can be managed without involving a developer each time a tracker or pixel needs to be added or removed. A traditional code deployment method can take quite a while to get the needed tracker pushed out live on the website. This can be very rigid and not useful to orgs that need to quickly post and remove tags from their website. 

Would a Tag Management System help me comply with GDPR? 

One of our customers is using it to help maintain their privacy requirements and governance around GDPR. In their tool, they have rules that will not allow some tags to load unless certain criteria are met. For example, in the EU, users are opted out of being tracked by default (meaning no trackers or cookies will load at all until they choose to opt-in). But in the US, where GDPR rules are different, the tags will fire unless users select to opt-out. All of this can be adjusted within a Tag Management System more easily than if it were part of the site code. It is possible that if tags are added without the aid of a system, then the site owners might not be complying with the appropriate rules. They would need to ensure that conditional logic was added to the code to ensure the tags fire only at the correct time, which increases the risk of failing to meet privacy requirements while also adding to the development effort as well. 

Will a Tag Management System bloat my website and make it load slower?  

Code bloat is a serious concern for a website. Users and site owners want to have the best experience possible loaded as quickly as possible. Tag Management Systems might seem like they are introducing more code than is necessary, but in reality, they are helping to manage the code that is loaded on the site. There are controls that help govern when certain code should load on specific pages at specific times, thus minimizing the impact of excess code. A properly implemented system will not significantly impact the load time of a website. 

What Tag Management Systems are available in the market? 

There are many systems available to help manage tags; Adobe Tags (also known as Adobe Launch), Google Tag Manager, Tealium, Ensighten, Signal, and more. Our Analytics team is familiar with all of these tools and can help you identify which system will work best for your site, provide the initial setup, manage the ongoing needs of tag management, or train your teams to do it themselves. 

If you need help getting started with a Tag Management System, then let our team of certified experts help.