Digging deeper into tag manager you will discover that the untold story. Tag manager gets its real power for from a second component called the data layer. The data layer allows tracking events taking place on the page and custom data. The data layer work on a page basis - so if you identify a user as a high-value client on page A when she navigates to page B this data is no longer in the data layer. However if she has not completed the funnel to page C - it can be used for setting up a remarketing campaign later on. Perhaps the reason why the data layer is not mentioned in the introductory videos and the quick start guide is that the data layer needs to be setup and maintained on a page by page basis.
One more issue with tag manager - is that unlike google other tools for webmasters, advertisers and analysts is that you start with a clean screen and have to build tags and events pretty much from scratch. Until this changes tag manager is going to remain a power tool for users with the technical sophistication to set up.
To sum up tag manager is a powerful new tool for managing different tags required for web traffic and behavioral tracking. It can simplify the process and allow you to bypass IT and webmasters, web developers when you need to make quick adjustments. On the downside it works best with a data layer which requires planning, very accurate naming conventions and tight support from the IT etc people google wants to leave out of the loop. Another issue even if the data layer is not used is that setting up tag manager requires sophistication to capture many of the interactions taking place on websites, flash or application.
Next time I'll be looking at how I used tag manager to set up analytics in a small Android App.
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