Executive Summary This How-­To Guide will explain tags, tag management, how tags are used, why it is important to manage them and concludes with considerations for determining if you need a tag management solution. Marketers are working in an era where much of what they do is digital marketing. The capabilities for marketers to create stunning digital experiences and track a visitors journey through a website were unheard of less than a decade ago. The increasing sophistication of digital marketing is underpinned by a technology component that many marketers remain ignorant of: the tag. The technologies and applications that leverage tags are legion and comprise the core of marketing’s infrastructure, such as analytics and marketing automation. The importance and impact of tags is such that marketers need a better understanding of them so they can manage them more effectively. Read this 6-page guide to learn: The definition of tags How tags are used The importance of tag management Tag management implementation plan Demand Metric's How-To Guides are designed to provide practical, on-the-job training and education and provide context for using our premium tools & templates. If there is a topic that you would like to see covered, please contact us at info@demandmetric.com (link sends e-mail) to make a content request.

1. How-To Guide
© 2013 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Tag Management
By Jerry Rackley, Chief Analyst
November 2013
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Marketers are working in an era where much of what they do is digital
marketing. The capabilities for marketers to create stunning digital
experiences and track a visitor’s journey through a website were
unheard of less than a decade ago. The increasing sophistication of
digital marketing is underpinned by a technology component that many
marketers remain ignorant of: the tag. The technologies and
applications that leverage tags are legion and comprise the core of
marketing’s infrastructure, such as analytics and marketing automation.
The importance and impact of tags is such that marketers need a better
understanding of them so they can manage them more effectively.
This How-To Guide will explain tags, tag management, how tags are
used, why it is important to manage them and concludes with
considerations for determining if you need a tag management solution.
WHAT ARE TAGS?
Most commonly, a tag is a section (typically referred to as a “snippet”) of
JavaScript code that is embedded in an HTML web page. Tags are
sometimes also single pixels that are small and transparent, and
therefore visually undetectable on an HTML web page.
A web page may start its life with no tags. As requirements dictate, tags
are added to support the functions that tags enable. A single web page
can have multiple tags, and across an entire website, there is often a
proliferation of tags. Tags are routinely added to a web page by a web
developer or an IT resource using an HTML editor or Content
Management System to modify the page to insert a tag. For this reason,

2. How-To Guide
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even though marketing is the primary beneficiary of tags, there has been
a historical dependency on IT resources to place and manage them.
HOW ARE TAGS USED?
Tags are used to transmit information to external applications about
visits to the web page on which the tags are embedded. For example,
one of the simpler things a JavaScript tag can do is detect and transmit
the date or the version of the viewer’s browser. The capabilities of tags
to detect, transmit or invoke browser plug-ins go well beyond these
simple examples. For the most part, tags exist on web pages and
perform their designated functions outside the awareness of the page
visitor.
There are hundreds of external applications that rely on tags, including
those for analytics, pay-per-click ad tracking, testing, personalization
and marketing automation to identify just a few. When a web page
visitor’s browser loads a web page containing tags, those tags are
activated. They gather the information they were developed to collect,
then transmit it to the external application those tags support. A tag’s
ability to communicate is not just one-way. They are also capable of
delivering content to the web page or browser, such as personalized
content, an ad or a cookie.
Examples of how tags enable digital marketing are many. When
marketers send HTML email blasts where each message has a
personalized salutation (e.g. “Dear Fred”), tags are in use. Tags drive
the personalization of web pages, dynamically detecting a new or
returning visitor, then serving up content specific to that visitor.
Analytics are made possible through the use of tags, and the wonderfully
rich set of information marketing automation systems provide is also
tag-driven. The growing trend toward Marketing Attribution is
certainly tag-dependent. There are many ways that tags enable function
that is critical to marketing’s success; these are but a few of the more
recognizable examples. It suffices to say that tags are important and
have much to do with the creation of rich, digital experiences.
WHY MANAGE TAGS?
While tags enable much of the digital marketing in use today, they
present some challenges:
 The proliferation of tags. Tags are everywhere on a website,
and many web pages have multiple tags that were manually

3. How-To Guide
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inserted. Simply keeping track of which tags are on each page is
complex, yet knowing this information is absolutely critical. The
challenge of tracking tag usage is greatest for large, rich
websites, which could easily have hundreds of tags. Manually
tracking these tags with 100% accuracy is virtually impossible.
 The IT dependency. Since tags are usually JavaScript, they are
often inserted into an HTML web page by a web developer or
programmer. Many marketers don’t have the technical skills to
do this, creating a dependency on an outside technical resource to
insert, update or remove a tag. The problem with this approach
is simply one of agility. Marketing may miss some opportunities
while waiting on IT to process a tag-editing request, and on the
list of IT priorities, tag maintenance is probably fairly low.
 The performance hit. Tags are executable code, so web pages
that are loaded with tags may experience slower loading times.
There is a real cost to this performance hit, as sluggish web pages
drive visitors away, resulting in lost leads or even sales.
ACTION PLAN: IMPLEMENTING TAG MANAGEMENT
Fortunately for marketers, tag management solutions exist that address
the previously described challenges. The tag management market is
still emerging with many solutions and lots of differentiation. Like
many technology solutions, early adopters were larger organizations
that were really feeling the pain of managing tags manually. This
technology is now becoming mainstream, accessible and affordable for
smaller organizations.
At the macro level, tag management solutions replace most or all of the
tags on an HTML page with a single tag that communicates with the
tag management system (TMS). Marketers can then use the friendly
interface of the TMS to insert the needed functionality through the
TMS tag on the HTML page. It doesn’t require IT expertise to insert

4. How-To Guide
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and manage tags, and web pages don’t get bloated with lots of tags to
load and execute.
How do you know if you need a TMS? Here are some things to
consider:
1. How long does it take to insert or update a tag?
 Agility is an increasingly important marketing trait. If the
lead-time required to insert or update a tag is more than just a
few hours, you’ll save that lead-time through the use of a
TMS.
 Often the lead-time has to do with the availability of technical
resources that are not part of the marketing team, or are not
under the marketing team’s direct control. If marketing has
to rely on an unresponsive IT organization or an outside web
marketing agency for tag management, a TMS can eliminate
the wait.
2. How many tags?
 If you’re using multiple systems that are tag-driven, such as
Google Analytics, Google AdWords and/or a marketing
automation system, then your site will quickly become dense
with tags you must manage. The more tags in use, the
greater the likelihood that a TMS system will deliver a quick
ROI. While there is no predetermined threshold that should
trigger a move to a TMS, if you’re using more than one
application that utilizes tracking tags, you should consider a
TMS.
 There’s a direct relationship between tag density and
performance. If you’re using lots of tags and your page load
times are over two seconds, you are at risk of having visitors

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abandon your site. If tags are impacting the performance of
your site, you should implement a TMS.
3. How many domains?
 If your web presence consists of more than one domain,
perhaps including some microsites or sub-domains, tag
management quickly becomes far more complex. A TMS is
almost a necessity, unless you have plenty of free time to
inefficiently manage your tags manually.
4. Privacy concerns?
 Organizations must stay alert to changing privacy laws and
standards to ensure compliance. The US “Do Not Track” law
and European regulations about the use of cookies can
challenge marketers that use tags, which may run afoul of
privacy legislation.
 To avoid embarrassing or costly privacy law violations, a
TMS can help organizations detect visitors from countries
with different laws, excluding them from tracking until after
they have opted-in.
Any one of the considerations listed above could easily justify the use of
a TMS.
BOTTOM LINE
Marketers cannot afford to remain ignorant of the importance of
tags, what they do and how to best manage them. TMS offerings
are becoming more accessible to small and mid-sized enterprises. If you
determine that a TMS is in your future, keep in mind that the TMS
vendors currently enjoy a lot of differentiation. Some have their roots in
online advertising, others in analytics or operations. As you investigate
vendors, understand their orientation and conduct a proof-of-concept

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test to ensure the vendor you select is compatible, secure and reliable in
terms of performance.