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Tag Manager Training
GTM & GA4 glossary

GTM glossary

Tag

A piece of code that sends information to another tool, such as GA4, Google Ads or Meta. In GTM, a tag does nothing until a trigger tells it to fire.

Also known as: Tracking tag, Pixel

On this page
  1. In plain English
  2. Example
  3. Official documentation
  4. Related terms

In plain English

A tag is the "what" in Google Tag Manager. It might send a page view to GA4, record a conversion in Google Ads or tell Meta someone added an item to their cart.

GTM has built-in tag types for Google products and templates for many other platforms, so most of the time you fill in a form rather than write code. When no template exists you can use a Custom HTML tag, but that should be the last resort.

Every tag needs at least one firing trigger. You can also add exceptions to stop it firing in certain situations.

Example

A tag called GA4 – Event – generate_lead sends a generate_lead event to GA4. Its firing trigger is the contact form submission, and a variable fills in which form was submitted.

Official documentation

Last reviewed

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