Simple Test: Is Your Website Leaking Data?
If you fall within the majority (55%) of all websites that use Google Analytics, your business might be leaving money on the table. This revenue is in the form of actionable insights you didn’t track because you stopped at installing Google Analytics in the setup phase of your website analytics strategy.
You see, as part of the Google ecosystem, you need to use Google Analytics (currently known as GA4) in conjunction with Google’s Tag Manager (GTM) app in order to add custom conversion events to your business’ GA4 account.
What value does adding an additional app (GTM) provide? Among other capabilities, it allows you to track which instances of call-to-action buttons in your website design generate the most clicks. This is especially helpful if you use two or more buttons that say the same thing.
When you combine this GTM-powered functionality with GA4’s ability to tell you your traffic sources, top landing pages, and other key visitor data, failure to use GTM with GA4 essentially creates a website leak. GA4 gives you the infrastructure potential to catch all the juicy data you need. But not using GTM on top of it means that many of your most desired data points aren't reflected in your output — the analytics reports you review to make important decisions for your campaign launches and optimizations.
The good news is that, like GA4, GTM is free. You just need to install it (which we can help you with, if needed).
Here’s a super quick test to determine if your website has a data leak — missed intel because GTM is not installed on it.
Make sure to use a desktop or laptop computer. The following doesn’t work as easily on mobile.
1. Pull up your website
2. In any area of the page background, right click and select “View Page Source”
3. On the new browser tab that appears, hit Ctrl (or Cmd on a Mac) + F to open the Find window
4. Type “gtm” into the search box
If GTM is installed, you’ll see at least 4 results for “gtm” in your web page’s code, and all or most of them will be in a cluster of code that looks like this:
What's next?
Once GA4 and GTM are installed on your site, the final piece needed to fully plug your website data leak is using features within GTM (and live testing in GA4) to set up and ensure proper recording of custom-named events in your GA4 account. This will allow you to see specific button clicks, specific lead magnet file downloads, and other pivotal events that count as campaign conversions for your business.
We install GTM and customize GTM + GA4 event reporting for our clients. Learn more here.
