Starting off with Digital Marketing and fundamentals can sometimes be overwhelming. There are a lot of things that you have to learn, from social media forums to tools offered by Google.
Amid the novel pandemic, better known as COVID-19, people from all around the world are learning Digital Marketing. Google Garage is one of the best platforms to start learning.
Although many beginners often find themselves asking people where to start and how to start.
In the midst of such confusion, they end up mixing things and confusing one service with another. We have devised this extensive guide, covering all aspects of both the services, making sure that you are not confused between the two.
The All-Powerful – Google Analytics
Before we dive into why Google Analytics is preferred over other services, it is essential to understand what Google Analytics is actually about.
Google Analytics is a service that can help you keep track of audiences that visit different forums you have. You can track your website in the most robust ways, with details of users from all over the world. Google Analytics has a lot to offer and is an integral part of Digital Marketing.
Over the past ten years, Google has grown to become the best service provider out there. You need Google in everyday life. From managing your ad campaigns to tracking traffic on your website, Google Analytics can do it all.
The primary objective of using Google Analytics is as follows:
- Track and record user data that visit your website.
- Store data to be later analyzed by Data Analysts working for your website.
- Record demographic information such as;
- Age
- Geographical Location
- Gender
- Usability ratio
- Preferred content
- Divide your audience into subcategories.
- Generate automated reports on the basis of the audience.
- A record number of sessions per user.
- Record the time a user spent on your website.
- Calculate the mean ratio of users who spend a complete cycle on the website.
Furthermore, there is more to Google Analytics than it meets the eye. In order to set up Google Analytics, you have to follow a few steps.
First, you need to have a business account on Google; this is to make sure that you don’t mix emails and important notifications with your personal account.
The next step is to configure Google Search Console for your website. Google Search Console is important for your website to be indexed by Google. If your website is not being indexed by Google, does it really make sense to track audiences and manage marketing campaigns?
In order to configure your Google Search Console, you need to develop site maps (XML files), which define the blueprint of your website. There are many tools available online such as Yoast SEO, SEO Modifier, etc. that help you build viable XML site maps of your website. Once your site maps are ready, you can upload them on your Search Console dashboard.
The final step is to set up your Google Analytics account. Once your website is linked with Google Analytics, and you’ve filled the notary forms, the next step is to integrate JavaScript tags (code) within the head of your website.
There are two ways to go about this process, either integrate a plugin that helps you automatically insert tags in all pages or manually insert tags inside your website. After inserting these tags, you’re ready to analyze data that Google will fetch for you.
The Partner – Google Tag Manager
Now that we have an idea about what tags are and how they are used, it is time to dig deep within the usage of Google Tag Manager. Google Tag Manager, as the name suggests, manages tags without a developer going through tons of CSS Style Sheets and HTML codes.
All you need to do is integrate Google Tag Manager and let it do all the complicated work.
Previously we talked about inserting a JavaScript code within your website, now consider you’re running several campaigns on your website and all these campaigns need to be tracked by certain tags or code.
It is imperative to understand that sometimes websites can get cluttered by tons of codes, and as your business grows, you’re doing a lot of work from your website.
From managing your Search Engine Optimization to all your ad services, it is best that you use a tool that can install all these tags without a developer.
In such situations, Google Tag Manager comes in handy. Google Tag Manager can easily be integrated with all your Google Ad campaigns, Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, and much more.
Every digital marketing expert should be well-aware to use Google Tag Manager, and if you’re not, you can easily learn all you need to know about Tag Manager from YouTube or Google Garage.
In order to set up your Tag Manager account, you need to deploy a data layer, define variables, and create events. These events or better known as Google Tag Manager Events, are used to manage tags that you might have placed for a certain function that parses data to your Tag Manager, which you can later view to analyze all queries.
It depends on your expert who manages your Tag Manager account, as he/she will be responsible for creating particular events that enable you to manage your tags to the utmost capacities.
In order to begin using Tag Manager, you will need to deploy some JavaScript code inside the head of each page of your website. Moreover, you can use Tag Manager to manage several websites, linking all your subdomains to one account that will help you manage all websites from one place.
Imagine the hectic job of managing several accounts with countless tags – not a good picture!
Differences between the two – Tag Manager vs. Analytics
Now, to address the long-overdue question – Google Analytics vs. Google Tag Manager: Which Is Better? If I am completely honest, Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager are two different things.
Google Analytics tracks one code and records data collected from your website. On the other hand, Google Tags Manager tracks all JavaScript codes that are active on all your websites.
The code that you integrated into your website for Google Analytics is also called a tag. A tag that can be managed by Google Tag Manager along with other tags such as Google Ads, PPC, Facebook Pixel, etc.
Google Tag Manager is not a reporting tool, nor will it record data for you. As in Google Analytics, you can have automated acquisition reports, audience reports, and behavior reports. You can easily view data from the beginning of the time of all the people who have visited your website.
Google Analytics also enables you to download CSV files for data mining purposes. Hence, you can analyze data and invest in campaigns that give you better results than others. Moreover, you can introduce different metrics and manage several dashboards according to your own needs.
You can make up to 70 dashboards, out of which 20 are private, and 50 can be shared. Private dashboards are only visible to you, so the metrics you don’t want your Search Engine Optimization expert to view, you can manage them easily. The same goes for other departments as well.
Google Tag Manager cannot do this. It will not track and store data that will help you solve real-world business problems. All Google Tag Manager can help you with is to manage all your tags and events that you create for your website.
The tag manager is a very important tool when your website is cluttered with hundreds of PPCs, CTAs, or action buttons. If you want to track all forms on your website and make the most out of your cookies, it is best that you use a service like Google Tag Manager.
Boost your marketing skills!
As a digital marketing specialist, it is important that you understand the fundamentals of services provided by Google. Google provides Search Engine Optimization for content creators after indexing your website.
Moreover, Google provides tools like Google Ads, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and Data Studio that help marketing specialists bring the best out of their campaigns.
Since you’re already asking about Tag Manager and Analytics, I’m sure you are aware of the policies for Google Ads and Search Engine Optimization. Once you get a good grip on what kind of content you will upload on your website, Google Analytics will help you identify metrics (variables that measure the tendency of your business).
It is best that you hire a Data Analyst who can read and analyze your data on the basis of patterns and correlation between the two. You can use this analysis to make more meaning of your campaigns, track what kind of audience you are attracting more, where your audience is from, are they mobile users or desktop users, how many of the visitors turned into profitable leads, and most importantly, demographics of your audience.
All this data could be available for you if you use Google Analytics. Once you know your audience better, you will spend more time generating content that is specifically for them in order to attract more like them. In a world of seven billion people, if a million is visiting you, you can always find more like them.
Moreover, you can also track the sources which lead them to reach your website. By doing all this, you can bring forth the best marketing techniques and reshape the ideology behind your business. Moreover, I’d recommend that you spend money on Google Ads and pay more attention to keywords to direct more organic traffic towards your website.
Goals of Google Analytics
After Harvard Business Review published an article naming Data Science as the future and the job of the decade, companies started to value their data more than ever. Sensible companies such as banks and insurance companies were already recording and analyzing their data to make the most out of it. Data is used to analyze and make predictive models to bring forth what the future holds for the company.
Most companies get their data from their websites; for example, you own an E-Commerce store, and you’re wondering why your sales are not increasing or wondering ways to increase your sales. Now how to go about this situation? You can analyze your data and get to know more about your audiences. Show your ads to the right people and interest buyers, not every other person on the internet. All this data is fetched from Google Analytics.
Furthermore, one of the things that I love most about Google Analytics is the reports it shows. It gives robust acquisition and audience reports that help me make the most out of my client’s data. I can now suggest to them where to invest more and where to not.
We had a client who used to sell toys throughout the US; the problem at hand was that they were spending too much on ads but still not getting the desired results. All I did was study their acquisition reports and tell them most of their potential buyers were located in the Tri-State Area, not Florida or any other state. The next thing they did was to stop investing in other states and only restricted their online ads to the Tri-State Area, and their sales increased by 90%. Cool, right?
This is the power and primary goal of Google Analytics. Locate vital metrics and make the most out of your business. A local 50-year-old farmer might not be interested in the latest iPhone, but a youngster aged around 20-30 might be. Therefore, we advise companies to design robust ads and set the most beneficial audience, keeping in mind who will actually turn into potential buyers and who will ignore them. Wasting money on someone who can never be a potential customer is just simply pointless.
Google Tag Manager Vs. Adobe Tag Manager – Open Source Platform?
The biggest difference between the two is that Google Tag Manager is an open-source tool, whereas Adobe Tag Manager is not. You have to purchase Adobe Dynamic Tag Manager as a part of Adobe Marketing Cloud.
Reviews of people from all around the world say that Adobe Tag Manager is better than Google Tag Manager as it is easier to use and manage. However, Adobe Dynamic Tag Manager is not as efficient as Google Tag Manager when it comes to data security and management. Moreover, Google Tag Manager has a lot more to offer, if referred to as a part of Google’s marketing tools. All marketing tools offered by Google are free and open source. Although some say that Google Garage does not offer a robust tutorial for Google Tag Manager; however, Adobe Tag Manager has better tutorials and productivity rate.
Furthermore, it is all about what you are content with. If you’re someone who likes to keep things simple and not technical, in my opinion, Adobe Dynamic Tag Manager is better for you. However, if you value data integrity more than security, I’d say you go for Google Tag Manager. Events in Google Tag Manager are similar to Adobe Dynamic Tag Manager but are easily managed in DTM than GTM.
However, it completely depends on your marketing team to use any of the above-mentioned services as they provide the same tag solutions.
Conclusion
In our opinion, to end the discussion, we’d say that you completely study the working of Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager. They both are completely different tools designed for completely different purposes. Companies like Google don’t market similar products, and I guess that is quite understandable for the common people.
However, we hope that you found this blog helpful, and we were able to cut short the confusion you had in mind among the two services offered by Google. It is imperative to understand that both these services are integral when it comes to running a successful business that has a lot to do with the internet.
You cannot survive without the services provided by Google if your business solely depends on Google. Local Search Engine Optimization is now changing the ways grocery shops operated, and the entire world is going through the phase of digitization. Hence, it is best that marketing experts from all backgrounds understand the complete use and demographics of such services.
If you want to win big, you have to market big. That is how today’s world is, and it is important to stay ahead of your competitors. There are thousands of people doing the same business as you; it is your job to ask yourself what makes you unique and why people should buy from you and not from anyone else. Think big and take it all – that should be your motto. Digital marketing can be complicated at times, but is it, though?