Are you guilty of GTM clutter?
We’re talking about that Google Tag Manager container that started clean… but now looks like a digital junk drawer covered in Post-it notes:
- More tags than you can count
- Triggers are firing at the wrong times
- Variables you don’t even remember creating (if you even know what a variable is…)
In short, your GTM container is like a Frankenstein of old media pixels, duplicate tags, unused tag templates, and a host of “set it and forget it” leftovers.
GTM clutter is real. One look and you’ll wonder why you’re hoarding all those tags. Worse, it may be quietly wrecking your tracking accuracy, site performance, and general peace of mind.
With me so far? Or are you wondering what I’m even talking about? Let’s review the basics of why it’s important to keep your GTM organized and periodically clean up unnecessary clutter:
This is really a tale of “The What”, “The When”, and “The Context”. Throw in some tag hoarding clutter, and you can have a real mess.
Tags: “The What”
Tags are the heart of GTM. Think of them as instructions for“what” you want tracked. For example, a tag for a simple event like a form fill is simple enough. Clean tags mean cleaner data. Unnecessary tags (for example duplicates) can create issues like double-counting.
Triggers: “The When”
Triggers decide “when” your tags fire. Too often, they’re slapped on pageviews or clicks instead of true completions. For example, we frequently see cases where a media agency implements a button click trigger.
Sounds like it’s not that big of a deal, right? Can’t hurt much, right? Here’s where that can go wrong:
- Let’s say a site visitor fills out your form; however, they leave a required field blank
- Upon clicking “Submit”, the “button click trigger” records a conversion
- However, the visitor gets an error and gets told to fill out the required field (ever happen to you?)
- The required field is then filled, and the form is re-submitted (recording another conversion)
Get it? You recorded two conversions instead of one. It might make your agency look good in the short term, but phantom conversions serve no one.
That’s just one example. Imagine a whole site setup with those types of triggers, and that adds up to your analytics lying to you. Worse, if you have smart bidding set to optimize for conversions, you will be giving the system bad data.
The fix? Check for those types of triggers and replace them with smarter ones that trigger a conversion only after a successful form submission.
Variables: “The Context”
Variables fill in the blanks. On a phone call click, they tell you which number was tapped, not just that a call happened. While they don’t give you the full conversion path, they DO connect enough dots and fill in some blanks to give you a better view of the bigger picture.
Tag Hoarding Clutter
This is stuff that builds up over time. What may start as no big deal expands into a very cluttered container that becomes a headache to clean up and get control of. Examples of this include:
- Old media platforms you don’t even use anymore.
- Tag templates created once, forgotten forever. Ok, that may be a bit dramatic, but the point is that updates haven’t been applied.
- Multiple people with access leaving half-built experiments behind.
When To Review All This
If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably wondering when and how often you need to review your GTM to prevent the issues noted above. We generally advise to look at it annually, like you would a health checkup. There are exceptions, however:
- A change in personnel or agencies that have access to GTM.
- If you have multiple people in your tag manager account, more frequent checks are advised.
- If your developer doesn’t have proper marketing collaboration, you’re likely missing something. This is NOT a knock on developers (we LOVE developers – we have them!), but two things can be true at the same time:
- A tag can be properly set up from a dev perspective ,AND a tag can be not tracking properly, even though it is properly set up.
The Bottom Line:
Too many GTM setups suffer from digital bloating (aka Junk in the Trunk). Over time, this clutter drags down site speed, screws up tracking, and leaves you with a headache no one wants to inherit.
If you haven’t reviewed your GTM setup in the past year, you’re probably hoarding. A cleanup might not be glamorous, but your data (and peace of mind) will thank you.
Shameless Plug:
If you made it this far, it’s likely because you suspect your tag manager may not be clean. We do this all the time and we’re happy to help you keep your GTM clean, so feel free to reach out to us. We’d love to help.