How is your organisation managing its marketing tags? With marketing and advertising becoming more data-driven, Data Governance and Tag Management are becoming increasingly important for marketers to build, leverage, and attribute their first-party data.
In this article, we explore what an enterprise Tag Management System is, look at two popular Tag Management solutions in Google Tag Manager and Tealium iQ as well as considerations for selecting your organisation’s Tag Management System.
What is a Tag Management System?
A Tag Management System (TMS) is software that enables marketers to easily connect, manage and unify their digital marketing applications and properties by managing tracking ‘tags’ (snippets of code or tracking pixels), providing the foundation for data collection and governance.
Two popular Tag Management Systems, Google Tag Manager and Tealium iQ provide similar functionality but have a number of subtle differences.
“According to Gartner, data is valued at 20-25% of enterprise value”
What is Google Tag Manager (GTM)?
Google Tag Manager (GTM) is a free Tag Management System, allowing marketers to quickly and easily deploy or manage snippets of code or tracking pixels (also known as marketing tags) on their website, mobile app and digital advertising without having to update the code.
Benefits of Google Tag Manager (GTM)
- Google Tag Manager is free
- As a Google solution, it is focused on Google’s Ad products which it natively integrates with
- Consolidate all your tags for the ad (Floodlight), app & web ecosystems in one platform (i.e. Google Analytics)
- Add robust and templated event tracking for common user actions with no custom code
- Easily modify, test and debug tags and changes using the Google Tag Assistant
- Workspaces allow you to create multiple sets of changes for containers or maintain version control with the ability to revert changes to a previous workspace configuration
- More robust, publicly available documentation that is specific to Google Analytics tracking
- GTM allows you to preview your updates so you can quickly and easily test updates on your live site, without publishing or using QA
Drawbacks of Google Tag Manager (GTM)
- GTM is a Google solution meaning that implementation on non-Google platforms may not be as smooth
- There is an overall container size limit
According to research from IDC and Collibra, organisations can achieve an ROI of 510% over three years from data governance
What is Tealium iQ Tag Management?
According to Tealium themselves, Tealium iQ “enables organizations to control and manage their customer data and MarTech vendors across web, mobile, IoT and connected devices”. As the foundation of Tealium’s Customer Data Hub, Tealium iQ allows easy deployment and management of vendor tags, testing new technologies, and taking control of an organisation’s marketing technology stack.
Benefits of Tealium iQ Tag Management
- Tealium iQ has a simple interface for marketers to control tags
- Tealium iQ is vendor agnostic with 50+ integrations to a wide variety of different platforms
- No limit to the number of tags that can be created
- Tealium iQ has over 3,000 tag templates available in their Tag Marketplace
Drawbacks of Tealium iQ Tag Management
- It is a paid solution
- It is more difficult to learn than Google Tag Manager (GTM)
Use of Google Tag Manager (GTM) and Tealium iQ
Source: HG Insights
Google Tag Manager (GTM) vs. Tealium iQ? Which should I use as my organisation’s Tag Management System?
The selection of your Tag Management System is an important choice for any organisation and will largely depend on the overall Ad Tech and MarTech strategy. With research from Think With Google identifying that “leading companies are 1.5X as likely…to have an integrated marketing and advertising technology stack”, organisations that want to leverage the power of integration for their Tag Management System can achieve this through Google Tag Manager’s native integration with all Google products, including Google Analytics and the Google Marketing Platform. For organisations that are leveraging a more disparate approach to Ad Tech and MarTech, Tealium provides a range of integrations to consolidate your Tag Management across systems.
Finally, the scale of your tagging requirements also needs to be considered when selecting your Tag Management System. With a free account available through Google Tag Manager for small or medium-sized businesses, this can be a solution. In comparison, Tealium is more specifically an enterprise and large organisation solution and is therefore, a paid Tag Management solution.
Conclusion
Both Google Tag Manager and Tealium iQ are effective Tag Management Systems for setting up and managing your organisation’s cross-channel tags. While there are a few differences between the platforms, it is important for organisations to consider the overall strategy of their Ad Tech and MarTech as well as the scalability of their Tag Management strategy before deciding on which platform will best meet their needs.
For more information on Google Tag Manager 360 and how it natively integrates with the Google Marketing Platform or for support in implementing your Tag Management strategy, please contact your local FiveStones team today.