In this Video you are going to learn the differences between Google Analytics Event and Google
Tag Manager Events.
What they exactly are, where the differences and similarities lie and how you can use them
together?
All more, coming up, right after this.
Hi there and welcome to another video of Meausureschool.com - where we teach you the data-driven way of
digital Marketing.
My name is Julian and today I want to tackle a often misunderstood concept of Tracking
with Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics, which are Events.
They are probably THE source of common confusion among marketers who are just starting out,
so today we are going to tackle this problem head on.
We got lot’s to cover, so let’s dive in.
Let’s start out by talking about these two events in Google Analytics vs. Google Tag Manager
In Google Analytics you can find Events in the Event report.
As opposed to Pageviews these often represent Interactions that happened on you webpage.
How does that report get filled?
By sending an Event hit into Google Analytics.
This can be done manually by placing some code on your site, but could also be sent
via Google Tag Manager.
And this is where the problem starts.
In essence an Event in Google Analytics is simply another Hit Type, another data-point
that is separate from the Pageview.
We have often used an Event in our previous Videos to send data to Google Analytics, so
really the Event is often our End-Result.
Now let’s talk about Google Tag Manager Events.
We can find a reference to an _Event in the Variables tab in the Preview and Debug console.
Where does it come from?
Well… they actually originate in the dataLayer.
Let’s take a look here.
And we can find the event here again.
Notice that there is event with a colon and a gtm.js in our first dataLayer message.
These are our Google Tag Manager events, also referred to as dataLayer events.
What do they do?
Well, They have a very important function within Google Tag Manager.
As you can see every dataLayer message has a distinct event key.
This key marks kind of a “checkpoint in time”.
So as the site loads we see different dataLayer events happening.
First the gtm.js event, then the gtm.dom event and later the gtm.load event.
Unfortunately adding to the confusion GTM has a separate set of Names for them: Pageview,
Dom Ready and Page Load.
Those are the translations of the actual events in the dataLayer.
You can also see them on the left side here.
Now these Events or Checkpoints are very important because we are able to check and trigger tags
based on them.
[Trigger building]So if you ever build a Trigger you know you need choose an Event first to
evaluate your Trigger upon.
And since your filters evaluate Variables you also better make sure that your variables
are filled correctly at this “checkpoint”.
So here you can click through and step through the Google Tag Manager timeline and can inspect
your Variables and see what values they hold.
Now you can also add something to this timeline, by deploying an Auto-Event trigger.
These will push a Event into the dataLayer automatically.
Like here a gtm.linkClick.
So what do Google Analytics Events and Google Tag Manager Events have in common?
Nothing.
Really nothing at all, except of the Name.
So please don’t confuse GA Events with Google Tag Manager events.
So what is the confusion?
Well, we can utilize Google Tag Manager events to fire a Google Analytics event.
So here we build a trigger, we choose a Google Tag Manager event, which
is the Pageview Event, we set our filter,
And now we connect this trigger to Google Analytics Event
Try it all out.
LEt’s go into the PReview and Debug mode Reload our page
And we see - based on our Pageview event, our Google Analytics Event fired.
We can also see this in the Real time Reporting.
So there you have it….
Google Analytics Events are really unrelated to Google Tag Manager Events.
Unfortunately the Naming is the same, which trips some people up, but I hope this explanation
was able clear things up for you.
If you still have questions, please leave them in the comments below.
We also have some more resources in the Description below, where you’ll find more interesting
information about the dataLayer.
Other than that, If you liked this video, please consider subscribing and check out
our other videos: We have tutorials, quick tips and more all about the world of Measurement
right here on this channel.
And we bring out a new video Every Wednesday.
My name is Julian.
Till Next time