Unveiling the Power of Configuration & Event Settings Variables
Managing multiple Google Tag Manager (GTM) tags can become cumbersome, especially when they share common settings. Configuration Settings and Event Settings variables offer a powerful solution, allowing you to define reusable configurations and event parameters that can be applied across various tags. This simplifies tag creation, improves consistency, and reduces maintenance overhead.
The Struggle with Redundant Tag Configurations
As your website grows, you'll likely implement numerous GTM tags for analytics, marketing tools, and other purposes. Many of these tags might share similar settings, such as the Google Analytics measurement ID or the environment (development, staging, production). Manually configuring these settings for each tag becomes time-consuming and prone to errors.
A Centralized Solution: Configuration & Event Settings Variables
Configuration Settings and Event Settings variables provide a way to centralize these common settings. Here's how they work:
-
Configuration Settings Variables: Define reusable configurations for settings like user IDs, container URLs, and also user parameters. Valid parameters for configuration settings will be marked with a checkmark. A full list of valid parameters can be found in the official documentation: Reuse configuration settings in Google Tag Manager. Once created, you can reference this variable in your tags, eliminating the need to manually enter these values repeatedly to your Google Tags.
-
Event Settings Variables: Capture event-specific parameters you want to reuse across multiple tags. This is particularly useful for event tracking in Google Analytics 4 (GA4), where events often share common parameters like currency or product ID. Similar to the configuration settings variable, valid parameters for event settings are marked with a check mark (for further reference: Reuse event settings in Google Tag Manager). When implementing a generic event setup, the event settings variable may also be used even if the parameters are not shared across different events. In addition to event parameters, also user properties can be added to the event settings variable to be captured together with an event, streamlining the setup even more.
-
Putting into Practice - Adding Variables to the Google Tag: Once you’ve created your Configuration Settings or Event Settings variable, incorporating it into your tags is a breeze: Just select the desired variable from the dropdown in your Google tag to add it and effortlessly inherit all parameters into your tag. In addition to inheriting the variables, you can also choose to override single variables from the settings variable, and also add additional parameters that should only be applied to the respective tag.
Reap the Benefits: Efficiency, Consistency, and Simplified Maintenance
By leveraging Configuration Settings and Event Settings variables, you achieve several benefits:
- Increased Efficiency: Creating and modifying tags becomes faster as you don't need to re-enter common settings.
- Improved Consistency: Centralized settings ensure consistency across all tags using the variable, minimizing errors.
- Simplified Maintenance: When a configuration needs to change, you only modify the variable, automatically updating all associated tags.
Getting Started: Requirements for Using These Variables
To utilize Configuration Settings and Event Settings variables, you'll need a Google Tag Manager account and a basic understanding of GTM tags and variables.
This approach allows for a more streamlined and efficient workflow when managing multiple tags in Google Tag Manager.