What is a tag? What is tag management?
Tags are snippets of JavaScript code embedded into HTML web pages. Tags can also be 1x1 transparent pixels (sometimes referred to as a beacons or bugs).
Tags send data about a web page and page visitors to third-party vendors who provide digital marketers with essential marketing data and services, affecting website function as well as form. The most common types of digital marketing services delivered via tags are:
- web analytics
- pay-per-click (PPC) tracking
- social media interaction
- affiliate marketing
- behavioral targeting
- testing & optimization
- personalization
- consumer surveys
- ad networks
- product comparison
Learn more in our whitepaper "Tag Management Fundamentals for Digital Marketers"
What exactly does a tag do?
Tags collect data from websites. When a browser opens a web page, it reads and “fires” the tags on that page. These tags communicate with external servers, collecting and transmitting data to be analyzed later (like where the visitor came from, time spent on the page, links clicked). Tags also deliver content to web pages (such as ads) or to browsers (such as cookies), and provide services to web pages (like a user being able to “share” a page on Facebook or initiate a live chat with customer service).
How prevalent are tags?
Tags are everywhere. Every major media, brand or e-commerce website, that is highly trafficked, relies on dozens of different tags. A typical website will have anywhere from 50 to 100 simple and complex tags. Home pages and shopping cart pages frequently contain as many as 20 tags.
What is a tag management system? What problem do they solve?
Tags add hundreds of lines of JavaScript code to a web page, slowing page load performance and they present a major management challenge to marketing and IT organizations. Tags are individually deployed and maintained on every page of a site manually, which is time-consuming and prone to error. The scope and complexity of manual tagging results in pages becoming cluttered with tags that are outdated, broken, poorly-written, full of extraneous code, duplicated, misplaced, rogue or non-compliant.
A tag management system is a like a content management system (CMS) for Javascript. It enables digital marketers to easily deploy and manage all third-party tags from a single web interface, while accelerating page load performance and reducing reliance on IT. Tag management systems allow marketers to be more agile and positively impact the bottom line: reducing costs associated with tag development, implementation, and consulting, while increasing website conversions and revenue through more timely and effective application of digital marketing services.
Download the whitepaper for more on the benefits of tag management: "Tag Management Fundamentals for Digital Marketers"