Google Tag Manager

Google finally shipped a visual tagging tool. That alone proves the need is real. But they built it backward, buried a G... full excerpt

Google finally shipped a visual tagging tool. That alone proves the need is real. But they built it backward, buried a Google Ads helper inside a tag manager that was supposed to stay neutral, and skipped the one hard part that decides whether your tracking survives a live site. Here is what that tells us, and where TagCompanion fits.

Yes, obviously. But the answer that actually matters is not whether you can learn Google Tag Manager, it is how often yo... full excerpt

Yes, obviously. But the answer that actually matters is not whether you can learn Google Tag Manager, it is how often you will use it afterward. Learn it once and touch it twice a year, and the specifics quietly leak out between jobs, so you pay the learning cost again every time. I have been in GTM since 2015 and still found myself rewatching the same tutorials. Use it weekly: learn it properly. Use it rarely: do not spend tuition on a skill you cannot keep warm.

Last Tuesday, a developer pushed a CSS update. A class name changed. The tracking broke. Nobody noticed until Friday whe... full excerpt

Last Tuesday, a developer pushed a CSS update. A class name changed. The tracking broke. Nobody noticed until Friday when the ROAS tanked. That is the GTM problem in its most concrete form: the standard workflow produces tracking that is designed to break. No error, no alert, no warning. The data stops, and your ad platform flies blind. The complexity GTM veterans mastered was never the destination. Clean conversion data was. That era is ending.

You’ve spent hours debugging selectors. You’ve published things that broke. You’ve looked bad in front of stakehol... full excerpt

You’ve spent hours debugging selectors. You’ve published things that broke. You’ve looked bad in front of stakeholders because a tool made a simple task feel impossible. At some point, the thought crosses your mind: Maybe I should just leave Google Tag Manager. Before you do that, read this.

You need to track a button click. One button. One click. This is the most basic thing Google Tag Manager exists to do. I... full excerpt

You need to track a button click. One button. One click. This is the most basic thing Google Tag Manager exists to do. It took you 3 hours. It might still be broken.

You did everything right, tested it. Preview said it fired. You published. It broke anyway. That feeling is not a fluke.... full excerpt

You did everything right, tested it. Preview said it fired. You published. It broke anyway. That feeling is not a fluke. It's a design gap in GTM that nobody warns you about until you've lived it. And knowing how to know if GTM is working is harder than it should be, because the tool GTM gives you to answer that question doesn't actually answer it.