Kiosk recently attended the eMetrics Summit in San Francisco, to catch up on the latest big data technologies for marketers, study and share best practices, and network with fellow colleagues from the Digital Analytics Association.
The eMetrics Summit is a gathering of digital analysts who manage data-driven marketing campaigns — the kind of people who obsess over multi-channel marketing, marketing mix modeling and brand equity measurement. These are the kind of topics that keep data-driven Kiosk staffers awake at night, so it’s always fun to mingle with our kind of people.
A common theme we observed across all three days of the conference was proper tag management. If you don’t ensure your ad network conversion pixels (a.k.a. tags) are firing properly, you risk not pulling in all of the available data, aggregating incorrect data or otherwise adversely affecting your site’s performance. A few pointers on proper tag management:
1. Conduct a full, regular tag audit.
Do not simply spot check your tags. This can seem a tedious task, especially if you are managing hundreds or even thousands of websites. But there are services like ObservePoint or Hub’Scan that can make this practice go from days to hours. If you’re managing a mobile application however, your choice of providers will be limited as not all services offer a mobile solution.
2. Remove old tags when they are no longer being used.
This should be done as part of the audit, or whenever new tags are added. Old, unused tags can add to site load time, and if they’re third party tags belonging to vendors you no longer use, may compromise your data.
3. Use a Tag Management System (TMS), to help manage your tags.
This will free you from your dependency on your IT team to manually update tags. This can also help your website load faster, as your website will be loading one container tag rather than several tags. There are several TMS solutions available, including free options like Google Tag Manager (GTM) and paid option such as Adobe, Tealium, or Ensighten. Find one that fits your needs.
4. Evaluate your expectations.
When evaluating a vendor, consider your “could, should and must” requirements, and consider whether they’re met out-of-the-box, or will require a degree of individual customization that may create more work for your IT team. If you are not currently using a TMS, a good time to add one in is next time you are implementing something new on your site, like upgrading to Google Premium.
5. Ensure clear communication between marketing executives and web analysts.
As with any project you need to make sure there is clear communication between interested parties, to ensure the steps listed above can be implemented properly.
To talk to one of our data-obsessed marketing experts, contact us here.