Configuring Google Tag Manager for eCommerce PPC

What is Google Tag Manager?

Google Tag Manager (GTM) helps you create tags for your website that send data to Google Ads, Analytics and other reporting tools. Instead of manually adding tags to your website, GTM helps you create and add them without editing any code (you still have to copy and paste tags to the right location, though).

Aside from removing most of the technical work, GTM allows you to create and manage tags for all of your reporting tools in one place. Let’s say you want to send data from your site to Google Analytics, Google Ads, Meta for Business and your CRM. No problem – you can do all of this from Google Tag Manager.

With the Google tag installed on your website, you can send data to all of Google’s web reporting tools: Analytics, Google Ads, Campaign Manager, etc.

As an online retailer, the real magic happens once you set up eCommerce tracking in Google Analytics 4. This enables you to track key actions like product video views, CTA clicks, items added to cart, checkout initiations, etc.

How does eCommerce tracking with GTM work?

To set up eCommerce tracking with GTM, you need to do two things:

1. Add your Google tag to your website
2. Create events for each action you want to track

By adding the Google tag to your website, you’re allowing Google Ads and Analytics to pull data from each page the tag is applied to. Unfortunately, you have to manually create events for every action you want to track, but GTM is by far the easiest way to do this. Basically, each event is a unique tag and you define a trigger (eg: a button click or form interaction) to fire the tag and send the relevant data.

Google Ads events are more conversion-focused while Analytics events help you optimise pages for conversions, UX and performance on a wider scope.

What can you track with GTM events for Google Ads?

You can create and manage four types of Google Ads tags in GTM:

1. Conversion tracking: Track conversions from ad campaigns, product data, new customers, lifetime value and other insights.
2. Google Ads remarketing: Tag your site for remarketing to target visitors who don’t convert with remarketing campaigns.
3. Calls from website conversions: Track calls from users who click through to your website from paid ads.
4. User-provided data: Use first-party customer data to enhance conversion measurement and your bidding strategy.

Conversion tracking is the most important tag type for Google Ads, but GTM is also the easiest place to deploy tags for remarketing and call conversion tracking.

You can also enhance Google Ads’ conversion measurement by implementing the User provided data, allowing Google Ads to securely store any data customers provide during the conversion process (eg: email addresses).

What can you track with GTM events for Google Analytics?

In Google Analytics 4, you can track an extensive range of user actions by creating events in Tag Manager, including:

• Link clicks
• Button clicks
• Site search
• Video plays
• Form interactions
• Product detail views
• Selected items from lists
• Items added to cart
• Items removed from cart
• Checkout initiation
• Promotions applied
• Purchases

That’s not a complete list of everything you can create events for in Google Analytics 4. Take a look at the Analytics Help pages for eCommerce measurement and enhanced measurement events for more details.

Implementing eCommerce tracking in Google Tag Manager

Step #1: Install Google tag on your website

First, you need to install the Google tag on your website, which you can do in Google Ads, Analytics or GTM. In Google Analytics, click the Admin icon at the bottom of the left-side menu and select Data streams under the Admin panel.

On the next dashboard, click the Add stream button and select Web from the dropdown options. Enter your website domain, name your data stream and click Create stream.

To add the Google tag to your website, open your data stream and click on the View tag instructions button at the top of the next panel.

On the Installation instructions tab, you can install your tag on popular website builders and CMS platforms like WordPress and Squarespace. If you’re using one of these tools, click the Select your platform button and follow the instructions.

Otherwise, to manually add the Google tag to your website, click on the Install manually tab. This reveals the Google tag code, which you can copy and paste into the <head> section of each page on your website.

Ideally, your website has a global header.php file that’s called into every page (like WordPress). This way, you can simply add the Google tag snippet to the header.php file once, and it will apply to every page on your site. Otherwise, you’ll have to manually copy and paste the tag code to the HTML code of every page on your site – a time-consuming approach that increases the risk of errors. If you have any doubts, work with a developer who can add and test the Google tag on your site.

Step #2: Create the Conversion Linker tag

Before you can set up Google Ads Conversion Tracking, you need to create conversion linker tags and deploy them on your landing pages. This allows Google Ads to measure click data when paid traffic visits your website from an ad campaign.

If a user converts after clicking through from an ad, the conversion linker stores this information as first-party data and attributes the conversion to the click, ad, campaign, etc.

To create the Conversion Linker tag, Open Tag Manager and click the New tag card on the main dashboard.

Step #3: Set up the Google Ads conversion tags

With the Google tag added to your website and Conversion Linker deployed on your landing pages, you can set up Google Ads conversion tracking. Once again, click the New tag card on the main dashboard of Tag Manager.

On the next tab, click Tag Configuration and select Google Ads from the list of tag types, then, Google Ads Conversion Tracking.

You’ll need to add the Conversion ID and Conversion Label from Google Ads for the conversion action you want to track with this tag. You can also optionally add Conversion Value, Transaction ID and a Currency Code.

Once you’re done, you need to select at least one trigger to fire the tag and you can set multiple conditional triggers for greater control. When you’ve selected your triggers, click Save.

Step #4: Create eCommerce events for GA4

Conversion tracking is the most important tag for Google Ads, but you can enhance your eCommerce reporting by creating events for GA4 in Tag Manager.

The steps are almost identical to creating events for Google Ads in GTM:

1. Open Google Tag Manager
2. Click Tags > New
3. Select Tag Configuration > Google Analytics > Google Analytics: GA4 Event
4. In Configuration Tag, select your Google Analytics 4 Configuration tag
5. In Event Name, enter the name of the event (for example, view_item_list)
6. In Event Parameters, add a row for each event-level parameter
7. In Parameter Name, enter a name for the parameter.
8. In Value, click the + icon next to the field and choose an existing variable or add a new one.
9. Click Save

Once you’re done, set your triggers for the tag and any exceptions for scenarios where you want to prevent the tag from firing.

Need help setting up eCommerce tracking for PPC campaigns?

Although Google Tag Manager makes it as easy as possible to set up eCommerce tracking for PPC campaigns, you still have to set up a lot of moving parts.

If you need help creating and managing tags or you need a more sophisticated reporting system, our analytics team can help. Call us on  02392 830 281 or send us your details below and we’ll get back to you. You can also check out our analytics services for more information.