Creating page-count-based triggers in Google Tag Manager

Nothing is more annoying than visiting a website and getting spammed by pop-ups, right? I’m pretty sure your users resent that too so if you’re a digital marketer, you are not always in control of how some partner tags get fired. What if you could set up engagement-based triggers to add another layer of control? What if you could control tags based on page count?

In today’s post we’ll be looking at how to set this up with Google Tag Manager by using a simple rule to store and increment the number of page views in a cookie. Then we’ll build a trigger that fires tags after a set number of pages have been viewed.

Ready? Let’s go 🙂

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Debugging Google Tag Manager remotely

So your website is equipped with Google Tag Manager (good).
But your webmaster/IT contact is AWOL/bankrupt/defunct (bad).
On top of that, let’s assume that you’re trying to debug something complex such as an e-commerce transaction but you have no way to place test orders to perform basic debugging.
Long story short: debugging Google Tag Manager can prove tricky! But fear not, here is one reliable method you can use!

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Google Tag Manager prepares support for other major tags

February 2019 EDIT: Google announced at Superweek Hungary the imminent release of tag templates, allowing for more tag flexibility!

If you use Google Tag Manager on a daily basis like I do (or hourly in my case), you probably love the fact that you can tie in tags for the entire Google ecosystem, especially now that Google released native support for YouTube tracking.

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Tracking AMP pages with Google Analytics and Tag Manager

AMP - Accelerated Mobile Pages - Google Analytics

So you took a leap of faith and adapted your site to support the AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) format? This can be quite the constraint at first but it pays off in the longer term because it will make your content both more accessible on mobile devices and more visible in Google search results.

Having said that, there are other considerations besides making your content compliant with a streamlined mobile user experience. For instance, AMP does not support JavaScript by default. If your initial reaction was “Eeek, my tags won’t work!”, you were absolutely right. And yes, that includes Google Analytics and other tags.

In this post, I will cover how to setup Google Analytics tracking on AMP pages with Google Tag manager.

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Creative uses of Google Tag Manager: site hacking/ripping

In my series on creative uses of Google Tag Manager and Analytics, here is a specific use case I thought i’d share with you.

I recently saw my blog content got ripped and reposted on another website, laced with porn content. Here is how I fought back with the help of Google Tag Manager.

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Google Tag Manager Data Layer for WordPress

[UPDATE] Google Tag Manager Data Layer for WordPress is now available on GitHub

[UPDATE] You guys are too lazy and prefer Duracell Tomi’s plugin 🙂

This year again, I was invited to talk at Superweek, the premier Analytics/PPC conference in Eastern Europe.
I talked about tag management best practices and mentioned my Google Tag Manager data layer for WordPress implementation. In this post, I am sharing my setup with you.

Ready? Let’s modify your theme!

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Tag management is not a miracle cure

Had lots of fun this year at Superweek giving presentations, sitting on a panel and dispensing a training.

The presentation slides on “Tag Management is not a miracle cure” are available on SlideShare or embedded below.
If you would like to receive a PDF copy of the slides or to book me as an analytics speaker for a conference, please use my contact form and I will make sure to assist you.