A Viget Glossary: What We Mean and Why it Matters - Part 4

We’ll wrap up our Viget glossary with a look at terms we use when talking to clients about data and analytics. Don’t miss our review of terms used by our UX, creative, and development teams.

Tag

The tags we’re discussing here are different than tags that might be used in a CMS to categorize content. In digital marketing and analytics, tags are snippets of code provided by analytics or marketing tools, which are used to integrate their services onto a site or application. They’re called tags because they’re usually surrounded by the HTML tags <script> or <img>. They often load files that are hosted on these third-party tools’ domains.

Pixels

A pixel, which is loaded by a tag, helps analytics and advertising platforms track purchases or other desired actions. A tracking pixel loads when a visitor loads a page or interacts with a site. It measures their activity — often through query parameters that dynamically change on the image URL — reporting back to analytics tools (via a server) about what kind of content a user interacted with, and what ads they clicked on, if any. It’s called a pixel because it’s a tiny 1x1 image file that is embedded on a page.

GTM

Most of our clients are familiar with Google Tag Manager, which we often refer to as GTM. Tag Manager is a platform that’s used to configure, implement, and manage tags for other Google services such as Ads or Analytics along with third-party tags such as Hotjar, Crazy Egg, and other data collection tools. You can think of it as “a CMS for tracking.” It offers teams an alternative to adding tags directly to a site’s codebase, which often requires a developer. Instead, when a user publishes a new setup within GTM, a previously added JavaScript file on the site will automatically update, reflecting the new tracking configuration.

Cookie

A cookie is a snippet of information that is placed onto a user’s browser by a web server or a script. It can store information such as whether you’ve already logged in to a site. It doesn’t not apply across multiple browsers. The goal of a cookie is to help a website identify a user or attributes about a user.

Having too many tags can impact a site’s load time and performance, and incorrect GTM settings can affect the accuracy of a site’s collected data. Reach out to discuss an audit of your site and analytics profile and don't miss parts 1, 2, and 3 of this series.