Google Tag Manager: Track Marketing Data Without Touching Code

Nov 5

Marketing Crash Course - Northwest Creative

Part 2 of The Practical Tracking Toolkit for Small Business Owners

In Part 1 of this series, we discovered how to use Google Analytics (GA4) to track website traffic and personalize the platform for your unique business needs. Now, If GA4 tells you what happened, Google Tag Manager (GTM) tells you how it happened and what exact actions your audience is taking.

Button clicks. Lead magnet downloads. CTA taps. Form submits. All the stuff that actually tells you if your content is converting or just being consumed. It’s a marketing goldmine!

And good news… you don’t need to write code. GTM lets you track all the little micro-moments that drive revenue without hiring a developer.

This is where most small businesses get left behind. But this is where YOU are about to separate yourself.

How To Use Google Tag Manager Like a Pro

Why GTM Makes Marketing 10x Easier
Step-by-Step: Set Up GTM
Track CTA Button Clicks (the easiest, most powerful first step)
Track Lead Magnet Downloads (PDFs, Guides, Checklists)
Connecting GTM Events into GA4 as Conversions

1. Why GTM Makes Marketing 10x Easier

When you use GTM right, you stop guessing and start proving what works.

Examples you can track in minutes:

Which CTA button gets more clicks (Book Call vs Learn More vs Get Started)
Which services page gets more “scroll depth”
Who is clicking your pricing page but not filling out your form
Which lead magnets actually get downloaded (not just viewed)

This is how you learn what messaging works and what doesn’t. This is how you learn where people are falling off. This is how you stop shouting into the void.

You can track a LOT more than the examples above in GTM. I’ve used it to block ghost bot traffic from China and any number of crazy scenarios, so if you want to learn more, watch some YouTube videos and get your hands dirty in GTM. I personally find Loves Data a great source.

2. Step-by-Step: Set Up GTM

In order to use GTM, you’ll need to create an account and do some quick setup.

Create an account + install the container:

Go to tagmanager.google.com
Click Create Account
Enter your business name
Choose “Web”
Google will generate two code snippets. Add those to your site header + body (or use your platform’s integration). Squarespace + Showit + Webflow make this SUPER easy.

3. Track CTA Button Clicks (the easiest, most powerful first step)

Tracking button clicks on a site is powerful. These clicks will be counted by GTM and you can pull it into a Looker Studio Report to see a visual for trends and analysis. We’ll tackle that in Part 3 of this series.

Want to know how many people click “Book a Call” on your site? GTM tracks it.

Step 1: Turn on built-in click variables

In GTM left sidebar → Variables
Under Built-In Variables → Configure
Turn on ALL click variables (seriously, all)

Step 2: Create Trigger

Go to Triggers → New → Click → All Elements
Choose “Some Clicks”
Condition → Click Text “contains” → Book Call (or whatever your button says)

Step 3: Create Tag

Go to Tags → New → GA4 Event
Connect to your GA4 measurement ID
Event name: CTA_click
Trigger: the trigger you just created
Publish.

Now every time someone clicks that button, GA4 logs it. This alone gives you TRUE clarity.

4. Track Lead Magnet Downloads (PDFs, Guides, Checklists)

Similarly, you can track the number of times someone downloads a lead magnet on your website. This is helpful if you want to understand the value that the lead magnet brings to your website visitors because if it gets a lot of clicks, that means people want it. If it gets few clicks, you may need to rethink the lead magnet format or content topic.

Step 1: Trigger

Go to Triggers → New → Just Links
Condition → Click URL contains .pdf

Step 2: Tag

New GA4 Event
Event name: leadmagnet_download
Trigger → your PDF trigger

Publish.

You’re now tracking REAL conversion behavior.

5. Connecting GTM Events into GA4 as Conversions

Now, for those events you wanted to track as conversions on your website, you need to feed your GTM Events into GA4 so you can report out on them as conversions.

In GA4 → go to Reports → Engagement → Events

Find “CTA_click” and/or “leadmagnet_download”
Toggle Mark as Conversion

Boom. Those are now official conversions in your analytics.

Here’s the point.

Using Google Tag Manager gives you the ability to see which small actions lead to sales and revenue.

You will now be able to answer things like:

Which CTAs actually get clicked?
Are my lead magnets pulling their weight?
Is my messaging working?
Which pages actually move people toward working with me?

You stop creating “content for content sake” and start creating marketing that moves people.

Up Next (Part 3): Looker Studio

This is where we turn all this into one simplified view you check monthly. This is also where small business owners finally feel free from chaos and you get to reap the benefits of tracking your marketing data… better decisions and sharing your metrics with key stakeholders who need access to it.