It’s very easy to sign up to an online service that isn’t trackable. We often see organisations using services whose lack of trackability is absolutely killing their marketing, growth and optimisation opportunities. An example of the worst case scenario which we’ve encountered more than once: a charity spends a lot of effort and money upgrading their CRM to a platform (that shan’t be named) that includes a lot of great automation features but no tracking integration. Meaning once the website cuts over, they lose not only all revenue data in their Google Analytics account but even the shadow of a possibility of getting that data again.
Most of the time, this happens because of these 4 reasons:
- The stakeholder involved in selecting the platform is not aware that tag management is important or even that it exists. This might not be a big deal and easily fixable if there’s not much at stake, for example your social sharing widget is not trackable. However the more important the platform to your business (eg. the CMS that actually hosts the website), the more catastrophic the results. If this is your org, it probably needs a big data culture transformation. Try our digital maturity self-assessment and look into resources for presenting your case. In our opinion a stakeholder who isn’t aware that tracking and advertising are major considerations for almost all orgs probably shouldn’t have the decision-making power but you don’t have to lead with that 🙂
- The platform provides its own reporting and analytics. This is nice for answering basic questions, for example for a social sharing widget “which social platform is being shared the most?”. But it’s very unlikely that you’ll be able to answer questions that cross reference other user interactions, for example “are people who share a page more likely to end up converting”? Also without a generic way to add tags you still wouldn’t be able to connect other third parties like Facebook Pixel and hence optimise ad campaigns for particular user actions.
- The platform provides its own integration with common services like Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel. This is great if you use just those two services but if Australia’s 2021 #newspocalypse has taught us anything it’s that diversification is important. You probably want to rely on more than 2 platforms for your marketing mix. As an aside, the vast majority of the time a service has a direct integration with Google Analytics (where you just enter your tracking code and it does the rest), it can’t be customised.
- The stakeholder assumed that a platform deployed on the website was trackable with the website’s own Google Tag Manager. This is most common with website widgets, and in general they are trackable using GTM although sometimes you need some HTML/CSS/Javascript knowledge to do this properly. But the big exception is any widget that uses an iframe. These are not trackable in principle unless the service provider also has something like a Javascript API which the website can use to talk to the widget. Even then your tracking would be limited to the events the API provides.
Normally we recommend checking whether a service is compatible with Google Tag Manager early in the process. Of course being a digital analytics agency we’re biased towards the importance of data but for major business functions like your website, your lead form submissions, your ecommerce/donation platforms we would recommend that you immediately disqualify any platforms that don’t provide this integration.
It’s impossible to compile a list of all the major platforms but this might give you a head-start. Here are a few top services split by their category. The question is, can you integrate these with Google Tag Manager in order to track almost anything?
If any are missing that you’d like us to investigate or if anything’s out of date, send us an email.
Content Management Systems and Website Builders
Here being able to add GTM is an absolute must. Luckily most platforms make it pretty easy. Watch out for some paid platforms where you cannot do this unless you subscribe at a medium-level tier.
| Platform | Can it be integrated with GTM? | More details | Link to resource |
|---|---|---|---|
| WordPress (hosted through wordpress.com) | Yes | Only on the Business plan and upwards which lets you install plugins. | More Info |
| WordPress (self-hosted) | Yes | Modifying code or a plugin is required, we recommend the plugin at the More Info link | More Info |
| Squarespace | Yes | Yes for Business plan and upwards which has “Complete Customization with CSS and JavaScript” feature | More Info |
| Shopify | Partial | For standard accounts you can add GTM to all pages except the checkout onwards. For Shopify Plus you can also add it to the checkout. | More Info |
| Wix | Yes | For Premium plans. | More Info |
| Magento | Yes | There are plugins like this one. | More Info |
| Hubspot | Yes | More Info | |
| Tumblr | Yes | Use the custom code/HTML feature. | More Info |
| Webflow | Yes | More Info | |
| Joomla | Yes | There are extensions like this one. | More Info |
| GoDaddy Website Builder | Yes | Use the custom code/HTML feature. | More Info |
| Drupal | Yes | There are contributed modules like this one. | More Info |
| Blogger | Yes | Use the custom code/HTML feature. | More Info |
Donation Platforms
While CMSes tend to be quite good here, now we’re getting into a high risk of not being able to track your donation volume, which is generally really bad for a non-profit’s growth. Note that you will probably need to implement cross-domain tracking for Google Analytics if you’ve also got a main website that people would start on but this, while annoying, is at least possible for platforms where you can add GTM.
| Platform | Can it be integrated with GTM? | More details | Link to resource |
|---|---|---|---|
| GiveNow.com.au | No | n.a. | |
| Charidy | No | n.a. | |
| Raisely | Yes | More Info | |
| Patreon | No | n.a. | |
| GiveEasy | Yes | More Info | |
| NationBuilder | No | Some themes may include an integration, or you can create your own theme | n.a. |
| JustGiving | Unknown | n.a. |
Event Management Platforms
Here it’s quite rare to have a full integration although there are some workarounds possible with Javascript APIs and/or automation tools such as Zapier for some.
| Platform | Can it be integrated with GTM? | More details | Link to resource |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jomablue | No | n.a. | |
| Eventbrite | No | n.a. | |
| Humanitix | Yes | Full ecommerce dataLayer integration for registrations | More Info |
| Calendly | Partial | If you have a Calendly popup on the website, its Javascript API can be used to track events into your GTM container. If someone is on Calendly.com though there is no direct integration, although you can use Zapier to bypass GTM. | More Info |
| Rezdy | Unknown | n.a. |
Form Builders
This is similar to the event platforms. Note that there may be a difference depending on whether the form is embedded into your own page or if the user is actually sent off to a third party domain.
| Platform | Can it be integrated with GTM? | More details | Link to resource |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hubspot | Partial | If you have a form on your website, its Javascript API can be used to track events into your GTM container. | More Info |
| Pardot | Yes | When customising your template | More Info |
| Typeform | Yes | For Professional plans onwards (unless you have a payment field in your form) | More Info |
| Google Forms | No | You may be able to deploy some tracking, or even GTM using Google Apps Script but this would not be straightforward. | n.a. |
| Jotform | No | There is a workaround for you to download your form’s raw source code and add GTM to it yourself, then deploy it to your website. | More Info |
| Wufoo | No | n.a. | |
| SurveyMonkey | No | n.a. | |
| Formstack | Partial | If you have a form on your website, its Javascript API can be used to track events into your GTM container. | More Info |
| Paperform | Yes | More Info | |
| FormSite | Yes | More Info |
Landing Page Builders
This category’s very good, we couldn’t find any that didn’t? This makes sense since landing page builders are mostly for marketers who would want to deploy their own conversion codes. It might be the case for other categories but especially this one, If you come across a landing page builder without the ability to add GTM, run away.
| Platform | Can it be integrated with GTM? | More details | Link to resource |
|---|---|---|---|
| ClickFunnels | Yes | More Info | |
| Instapage | Yes | More Info | |
| Unbounce | Yes | More Info | |
| LeadPages | Yes | More Info |
Website Widgets
This is the biggest category and there are lots and lots of different providers. Generally any widget that uses an iFrame to insert itself into your website can NOT be tracked in GTM except for any Javascript API the makers might provide, otherwise it can be.
| Platform | Can it be integrated with GTM? | More details | Link to resource |
|---|---|---|---|
| YouTube | Yes | GTM has native video triggers and variables for embedded YouTube videos | More Info |
| Sumo | Yes | n.a. | |
| Soundcloud | Partial | Javascript API can be used to trigger GTM events | More Info |
| Vimeo | Partial | Javascript API can be used to trigger GTM events | More Info |
| Tawk | Partial | Javascript API can be used to trigger GTM events | More Info |
| LiveChat | Yes | More Info | |
| Formilla | No | n.a. | |
| Zendesk Chat | Yes | Javascript API can be used to trigger GTM events | More Info |
| Mailchimp Signup Form | Yes | More Info |
Payment Gateways
This one is probably the toughest category since the answer is usually “it depends”. Most payment gateways have APIs and programmatic integrations which should allow you to create custom tracking. This might be hard if you’re a small organisation trying to DIY. Your best bet might be to try get the platform to redirect to a thankyou page on your own website, although an embedded service that sits on your website and reports back to it like Woocommerce is even better from an analytics perspective.
| Platform | Can it be integrated with GTM? | More details | Link to resource |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paypal | No | You can configure it to redirect the user back to your website when a transaction is completed; there are also API integrations for payment notifications | More Info |
| Stripe | Yes | The success page can be hosted on your own website and customised | More Info |
| Woocommerce | Yes | With a free plugin | More Info |
| Afterpay | No | You can configure it to redirect the user back to your website when a transaction is completed. | n.a. |
| Square (stores hosted by Square) | Yes | More Info | |
| Square (Square Checkout from your own website) | No | You can configure it to redirect the user back to your website when a transaction is completed. | More Info |
Audio/Podcast Players
There are lots of players out there. Many of them are implemented using iframes, in which case you will need a Javascript library to let the website know when someone’s started playing a podcast.
| Platform | Can it be integrated with GTM? | More details | Link to resource |
|---|---|---|---|
| Libsyn | No | The player is an iframe and there is no obvious Javascript library to use. | n.a. |
| Whooshkaa | Yes | There’s a Javascript library | More Info |
