Default Tag Manager configuration does not handle page views!

  • EDIT: I had initially confused “Global Site Tag” and “Tag Manager” and experienced some unexpected behavior that furthered the confusion. The plugin author made an effort to prevent this pitfall for others so the number of stars has been amended.

    I casually changed the setting in this plugin to switch to the new Google Tag Manager implementation earlier this year. I verified that my one Tag Manager click event was coming through just fine and moved on. Six months later when I needed to review analytics I realized that changing that setting disabled plain old page view logging!!! I’ve relied on this plugin for years, but I think I’m going to exclusively use Google Site Kit plugin after this experience.

    • This topic was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by Mark McEver.
Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
  • Plugin Author Jeff Starr

    (@specialk)

    Hi Mark,

    Sorry to hear about your tracking issues. The plugin never claims to support the Google Tag Manager. That is why you got the results reported in your review. The plugin does support Universal and Global Site Tag (Gtag) tracking perfectly well, just does not offer any support for Google Tag Manager.

    I am sorry that you misunderstood the features that are supported by this plugin, but feel like a 1-star rating is not warranted in this case. Hopefully you can understand and will kindly consider revising your review.

    Thread Starter Mark McEver

    (@mark-mcever)

    I’m no expert on the subject, so getting terminology confused is quite likely. I probably thought that the “Global Site Tag” and “Tag Manager” features were related or the same thing when I set it up months ago. Ironically, my analytics data since then seems to support that they are somehow related. I entered a “GTM-…” ID into the plugin setting which I’m now guessing was expecting a “Gtag”, and now I have 6 months worth of ONLY the single click event I set up in Tag Manager (no page views). Due to strict accounting for grant funding I am limited in the amount of time I am allowed to spend working on or even discussing this or I would try to provide more details. If you can make some sort of effort to prevent the same problem from happening to other novices in the future, then I will revise my review.

    Plugin Author Jeff Starr

    (@specialk)

    Interesting idea, so you are suggesting returning an error or warning if the user tries entering a Google Tag Manager (GTM-XXXXXXXXXXX) tracking ID? That may be do-able, I will try adding it to the next version (due within the next week or so), and then follow up here either way. I really appreciate your idea and willingness to revise your review. I really do care, and want to make this the best/easiest GA plugin ever, so thank you.

    Thread Starter Mark McEver

    (@mark-mcever)

    That type of warning sounds like a great idea. I think that would have avoided this pitfall for me. I’d definitely revise my review if you’re willing to implement that.

    Plugin Author Jeff Starr

    (@specialk)

    Hey Mark,

    I’ve implemented this feature in the latest version (20200815).

    Thanks again for the opportunity to further improve the plugin.

    • This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by Jeff Starr. Reason: adds version number
    Thread Starter Mark McEver

    (@mark-mcever)

    Thanks very much! I just updated the review to four stars and added a quick summary to the initial post.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
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