How to Use Google Tag Manager to Push Events to Google Analytics 4 (with Best Practices)

Google Tag Manager is a powerful tool that can help website and app owners collect deep insights into their user behavior. By leveraging Google Tag Manager, it’s possible to track detailed events on your website or app – including clicks, taps, form submissions, etc. – and push them directly to Google Analytics 4 for further analysis.

In this blog post, we’ll discuss how you can use Google Tag Manager to capture and report events on your site or app and how you can make the most of the data by following best practices.

Setting Up Your Event Data With GTM

The first step when using GTM for event tracking is creating a container for each event that you’d like to track. To create an event tag with GTM, there are three main components:

• Tags: These are snippets of code that allow you to fire tags from one source (ex., your website) to another (ex., Google Analytics). You will need one tag container per event type that you want to track in order to store all information related the the event.
• Variables: Variables hold all the data associated with each tag container so that it can be used later for reporting purposes in GA4. The variables you choose will depend on what kind of data you want to collect about each individual user such as device type, country of origin, or even age group or gender if available.
• Triggers: Triggers tell GTM when it should fire a particular tag based on different conditions such as page views or clicks on certain elements of your site or app. You can set up different triggers depending on what kind of events you want to track and how often they occur within your site or app’s user flow.

Once these three components are in place and configured correctly, GTM will start collecting data related to each of these events which can then be sent directly into GA4 for analysis without any manual uploads required from the user’s end!

Leveraging Your Events Data With GA4

Once all your events have been successfully sent into GA4 via GTM, it’s time for analysis! There are several reports available within GA4 that allow users to view their event data over time as well as compare metrics across different segments (age groups, devices used etc.). The most common way users leverage their event data is through funnel reports which measure conversion rates from specific pages/events within a website or app down through subsequent steps until a final action occurs such as payment completion or sign-up submission. For example if an online retailer was interested in understanding why customers may be abandoning their cart before completing payment they could set up funnel reports with steps beginnning at product added to cart through checkout completion in order see where customers may be dropping off during their purchase journey!

Best Practices For Utilizing Event Tracking

When utilizing event tracking with Google Analytics 4 there are several best practices that should be followed in order maximize accuracy and ensure quality data is being collected and reported upon:

1. Test thoroughly prior pushing live: Always test out your tagging set-up prior pushing live ensuring all triggers are firing correctly so no unnecessary traffic is being sent into GA4 and polluting your results with inaccurate information
2. Clean up old vendors periodically: If previously using another vendor besides GA4 for tracking events review previous code periodically ensuring no rogue tags are still active sending unnecessary traffic into both systems simultaneously thus biasing results and inflating numbers
3. Be consistent across platforms: Establish conventions across teams/projects/platforms so everyone understands exactly what types of tags should be included when setting up new websites/apps allowing more efficient implementation processes & better reporting capabilities

By utilizing these best practices users can rest assured they’re getting accurate representations of their visitors’ behaviors enabling them make smarter decisions about where resources should be allocated towards improving customer experiences within their digital properties!