You’ve probably heard your digital agency or website developer mention ‘Google Analytics’ and ‘Google Tag Manager’ before, and you may have gotten the two mixed up – as many have before. We’re going to break these two platforms down to understand the difference between them so that you can confidently communicate your needs when using the two in conversation, and also maybe pique your interest as to why the two should be used together to form a powerful tracking combination.
What is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is a free tool provided by Google that allows you to collect, analyze and visualise website traffic data on your website. It’s the platform that allows you to see things such as how many visitors your website got in a month, what those visitors did on your website and where they came from.
One of the ways that Google Analytics gets installed to your website for the above reporting to be possible is by your website developer installing a snippet of code to your website that Google provides for you in your Google Analytics account. It gets installed to every page of your website and just like that, you’re able to collect data right away from that moment onwards.
But then you might hear your developer or marketing agency throw in ‘Google Tag Manager’ in your next chat, and you get a bit confused. Are Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager the same thing? Not at all, but they can certainly work together to be a very powerful and useful combination for your website and business!
What is Google Tag Manager?
Google Tag Manager is another free tool provided by Google, which allows you to deploy a variety of tags and tracking code to your website. So in relation to Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager is a tool that allows you to deploy Google Analytics to your website. Google Tag Manager is a tool that you use to get the Google Analytics snippet of code added to your website. Therefore, Google Tag Manager does not replace Google Analytics at all. Google Tag Manager simply makes it easier for you to get Google Analytics added to your website and further configure it going forward with Google Analytics event tracking, etc. You’ll need to install the Google Tag Manager code to your website, but once it’s installed, you’re able to add a bunch of other codes to your website all on your own from thereon.
You might then think to yourself, “Why use Google Tag Manager when I can just install Google Analytics directly to my website?” Well, with Google Tag Manager installed, you are able to set up Google Analytics event tracking for tracking conversion activities such as form submissions, add the Facebook Pixel tracking code to your website when you set up a Facebook Ads account or add your Google Ads conversion tracking code, all without relying on or waiting for your website developer to do it for you. With Google Tag Manager installed, you do not have to wait for days for your website developer to install that new Facebook Pixel to your website or set up the event tracking code for the new form that you just added for a user to fill in. All you need to do is take 5 minutes out of your day to set up these tags yourself. This not only saves you time but also saves you money down the line as you do not have to pay for every time a new tag needs to get installed to your website and what’s best is that you can manage and view all of your tags in the Google Tag Manager interface – it is tag management at it’s finest!
Summary
So in short, Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager perform completely different functions, but when used together, can make your tag management and deployment much easier!
