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GTM & GA4 glossary

GTM glossary

Trigger

The rule that decides when a tag fires, such as "on every page view" or "when someone clicks a link to a PDF".

Also known as: Firing trigger, Exception, Blocking trigger

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

In plain English

A trigger listens for something happening on the page (a page loading, a click, a form submission, a data layer event) and checks any conditions you set. If it happens and the conditions match, every tag using that trigger fires.

Common trigger types include Page View, Click, Form Submission, Custom Event, Element Visibility, Scroll Depth and YouTube Video.

Triggers can also be used as exceptions. An exception stops a tag firing even when its firing trigger matches, which is handy for excluding test pages or internal traffic.

Example

A trigger called Click – Phone links uses the Just Links click type with the condition Click URL starts with tel:. Any tag attached to it fires only when someone clicks a phone number.

Official documentation

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