When To install A Tag management solution: 8 situations

As you shore up your digital advertising plans for 2015, there are probably many technologies you’re interested by deploying to generate outcomes.

in case you’re an active marketer who’s struggling to manage an increasing array of options and data sources, then tag administration must be excessive on your list. (Disclosure: I work for Tealium, an organization that gives this service, so I’m understandably biased in desire of tag management.)

however let’s say you’re bought on tag management as an answer — when precisely is the best time to installation it?

this is a question we get requested a lot. marketers wish to know when it makes essentially the most feel to introduce a tag management device (TMS) into their digital advertising technology stack.

normally, on the other hand, their assumption about definitely the right timing is backward. They believe they should wait unless they finish any number of key initiatives, from redesigning their web site to launching a new digital vendor ahead of enforcing a TMS.

actually, tag management will have to be deployed up front, as a result of it streamlines each of those initiatives and units the stage for a much more scalable and powerful digital infrastructure.

First somewhat historical past. Tag management is a fairly new know-how that makes it straightforward to deploy and take care of the various net page “tags” (code snippets) that almost all digital advertising providers now require their customers to enforce.

The tags are in most cases used for information collection, however may also launch product functionality. through streamlining tag deployments, marketers can elevate marketing campaign pace, elevate website online performance and set the stage for using extra personalised purchaser interactions across channels and devices.

listed here are eight timely eventualities for enforcing an enterprise tag administration way to maximize efficiencies and raise earnings.

1. prior to A site redecorate

in case you’re overhauling your internet presence, then your net builders is frequently spending an inordinate period of time porting dealer tag code snippets from the web sites of one web page to any other.

Tag administration simplifies this process and makes it more cost effective by way of enabling your advertising and marketing team to installation the code via a graphical net interface, the usage of drag-and-drop performance and fending off guide coding. The possible extremely-paid internet developers will handiest have to set up one set of tags — for the TMS.

in addition, as a result of this agility, you’ll be capable to simply set up additional instruments to measure the influence of the entire new bells and whistles you’ll be rolling out.

2. prior to Deploying enterprise Analytics

Manually implementing undertaking analytics options reminiscent of Adobe SiteCatalyst or IBM Coremetrics throughout your international internet residences can take many months.

Tag management reduces the time wanted for that course of, making it possible for marketers and analytics mavens to spend extra time defining and mapping KPIs from first-celebration information without needing to do any coding. This agility is also important for adjusting your analytics, since initial implementations hardly ever quilt the entire necessary information collection.

using tag administration to installation analytics is a virtual no-brainer. for example, Citrix’ SAAS division (our shopper) was once able to reduce the preliminary estimate of time needed for a global SiteCatalyst deployment from four to five months, down to 2 weeks.

3. before expanding Acquisition Or performance marketing activities

when you’re planning to ramp up your digital advertising actions with the aid of investing in a number of key options, keep yourself the headache and start with a tag supervisor.

it is possible for you to to installation your answer bundle extra speedy, which interprets into faster time to earnings. In a study by means of Econsultancy commissioned through Tealium, seventy three % of marketers said tag administration elevated their ability to run marketing campaigns, with forty two % saying it made the method “significantly faster.”

4. When Evaluating New vendor products

When evaluating new supplier technologies, don’t take six weeks to enforce, check, and overview one supplier, simplest to take rip that tag out and take six weeks to check any other. no longer only is it a lot of work, however it’s like evaluating apples to oranges –  testing a retargeting campaign in August (again to highschool) is much totally different than trying out a campaign in November (holiday buying).

Tag administration enables you to deploy each providers all through the same time period and use delivered testing functionality to separate the site visitors 50-50 to resolve the perfect resolution and outcomes. Implementation may also be achieved in hours, and both checking out campaigns may also be carried out at the same time as.

5. sooner than expanding The performance Of Your Free TMS

Most free or bundled tag managers solutions supply limited functionality. An undertaking solution will have brought features and capabilities that greatly extend the performance and data processing capabilities of the product. nice examples embody forex conversion, knowledge encryption, privateness regulate features, content material change, channel attribution and much more.

So sooner than asking your developers to amplify upon the free answer, at least imagine what an undertaking option can provide on the subject of needed functionality. in addition, if your free TMS provider is asking you to swap out existing code, now can also be a good time to consider a true, seller-neutral tag management resolution.

6. prior to Deploying cell Apps

the benefits that you get from deploying tag administration on traditional websites are neatly prolonged to your mobile apps. as soon as the tag management software building package (SDK) is deployed inside your app(s), you not need to re-certify it via your platform supplier (iOS, Android, Microsoft) each time you wish to have to change the information collected from cell applications.

This interprets into elevated agility, lowered costs, and precious insights that can be used to toughen the cellular consumer expertise together with different channels.

7. ahead of the vacation purchasing Season

if you happen to’re an e-commerce marketer, you’re probably all too conversant in the vacation “code freeze” – an IT-mandated lockdown of your international digital presence, regularly in October. This freeze prevents any new options or code from being presented for worry of risking outages or other website efficiency considerations.

Sounds reasonable, but it may possibly also sideline extra advertising and marketing initiatives that may be used to pressure outcomes throughout this critical duration – reminiscent of launching a new affiliate marketing online campaign, or an promoting solution.

should you deploy tag management neatly upfront of the code freeze, on the other hand, then the tag administration code that is used to serve the entire other tags is already baked into the site and approved by way of IT. that you may now take a more energetic role all the way through probably the most essential occasions of the yr, especially if results will not be where you expected them to be. that you can additionally insulate your self from malfunctioning tags.

8. earlier than purchasing knowledge Feeds

Getting information into your business information warehouse (EDW) — by means of buying information feeds out of your web analytics supplier or from firms offering submit-processing of such feeds — will also be pricey and time consuming, requiring you to buy again the raw information, process it, and then load it into your EDW.

Tag management simplifies that process by means of allowing you to pipe pre-correlated data in an instant from your TMS into your data warehouse. this saves you a significant period of time, money and brings you nearer to a real-time endeavor. For these reasons and more, any conversations round feeding data into your EDW will have to start with tag management.

Like many mission-vital options, there is no bad time to installation tag management, which has changing into widely recognized as foundational to the digital advertising know-how stack for its potential to assemble and standardize fragmented knowledge, in addition to distribute it to key partners for actual-time motion. but as these examples exhibit, some times are no doubt higher than others.

Do you have further examples? I would really like to hear them within the comments under.

in regards to the author

Erik Bratt

Erik Bratt is a professional digital advertising strategist and communications knowledgeable, with a fondness for telling compelling tales. sooner than joining Tealium, Erik held senior-degree positions at Microsoft, WebSideStory (now a part of Adobe advertising Cloud), InboundWriter, and VoxOx, a leading cloud communications supplier. prior to that, he served for 9 years as a certified journalist for the U-T San Diego.