Google Analytics vs. Google Tag Manager

How do you make decisions about your company’s digital marketing strategy? If you said, “We look at audience analytics data,” that’s the right answer! Businesses that track performance metrics for marketing are 500% more likely to see a return on investment. Among the free tools for tracking website metrics, Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager stand out. Which should you use? 

Which Is Better: Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager?

Comparing Google Analytics to Google Tag Manager is apples to oranges. A better comparison in this case would be someone asking whether vitamin C or fruit is healthier for your body. They’re related but different, and one can’t replace the other. Far from fighting each other, Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager make a great team.

What Is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a free tool that helps you track people’s actions when they visit your website. Google Analytics 4 is the latest iteration, and it brings event-based tracking. With GA4, you can keep tabs on a huge range of audience behaviors and key performance indicators:

• Total active users
• Email signups
• Page views
• Bounce rate
• Conversions
• Average engagement time

GA4 can show you how many people visit your site each month, which pages are the most popular, and how effective different types of content are for conversions. You can view all this information within GA4 or send it to a third-party digital marketing platform like Semrush or HubSpot.

What Is Google Tag Manager?

Google Tag Manager is a tool that helps you coordinate tracking tags for your website, social media accounts, YouTube videos, store pages, and other locations. To understand why this is a big deal, you first need to know a few terms.

Tags, Cookies, and Tracking Pixels

Cookies, pixels, and tags all have the same purpose: keeping track of user actions. Cookies are connected to clicks and paid search ads. Pixels/tags can track non-click metrics like how long someone spends on your page or how far they scroll.

Triggers

Triggers are code instructions that determine when an event gets tracked. In the real world, cities use triggers to count the number of cars that cross an intersection. For websites, triggers include clicking a button, loading a page, closing a page, watching a video, and similar actions.

JavaScript

A JavaScript snippet is a small piece of code you can add to web pages, website builders, or content management platforms (e.g., WordPress, Shopify, or HubSpot). This condensed code enables tracking features. For example, gtag.js is Google’s JavaScript snippet for capturing user analytics data from Google Search, Google Ads, YouTube, and other properties.

Google Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager lets you add, remove, edit, and otherwise manage a library of tags for your website. The Google tag (gtag.js) is just one tracking tag you can use. Other common tags/pixels include:

• Meta Pixel (for Facebook and Instagram metrics)
• Salesforce tags for customer relationship management
• Hotjar website heatmapping tools
• Crazy Egg site performance and error visualization tools
• Semrush ImpactHero for content insights
• LinkedIn Insight Tag for ad conversion tracking
• HubSpot tracking code

Each one of these tags is just a small portion of code, but when you’re tracking multiple pixels, it adds up. With GTM, you can control all those pixels independently of your website instead of adding tons of code to every page.

What Are the Main Differences With Google Analytics vs. Google Tag Manager?

Google Tag Manager has a different purpose (and different features) than Google Analytics. There are at least three big differences.

1. Reporting Tools

Tag Manager only controls the instructions for tracking tags, not the information itself. GA4 gathers user data, makes it searchable, and lets you create reports and dashboards for analytics. 

2. Tag Organization

The GTM app keeps track of all your tags without requiring them to live on your website. Instead, GTM adds a flexible container to your website’s code. The container looks for user actions that meet trigger conditions and activates tags only when they’re needed.

3. Tag Editing

To edit tags with Google Analytics, you have to make changes to your website’s code. This process can get complicated very quickly. With GTM, you don’t need to touch your site’s JavaScript at all (except for the first-time GTM container setup) to create new trackers or modify settings.

GTM is like a meal-planning app, providing the framework and tools for saving and organizing recipes. GA4 is like one collection of recipes for the app. Meta Pixel and LinkedIn Insight would be other recipes.

Do I Need Google Tag Manager If I Have Google Analytics?

The ideal setup for SEO rankings is to use both Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics. Tag Manager helps you coordinate the tracking tags, and GA4 delivers the data to your dashboard.

One exception is if you already have GA4 on your website and don’t need any additional metrics. The setup process for GA4 adds the gtag.js snippet, so you’re good to go.

Do you run any social media marketing or paid search campaigns? The more tracking pixels you use, the bigger the headache if you try adding the JavaScript directly to your website. Setting up Tag Manager once and having flexible functionality forever is worth the effort.

What Are the Advantages of Using Google Tag Manager?

Changing website code directly — even minor snippets — can cause a domino effect with bugs and headaches. GTM doesn’t impact your site’s functionality, so you avoid these issues.

We also recommend using GTM to improve technical SEO factors like loading times. Normally, every JaveScript snippet on a web page slows it down. By only running scripts when trigger conditions are met, GTM keeps pages lightweight and responsive, which is great for mobile users.

How Difficult Are Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager To Use?

There is definitely a learning curve for choosing, setting up, and configuring tags on your site. Not a fan of coding? Our team knows Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager backward and forward. We can handle everything, from customizing GTM tags to creating an analytics dashboard for your most important KPIs. Take advantage of these powerful tracking tools to improve your marketing results today.