Enterprise tag management entails the process of managing and organising a collection of marketing and analytics tags that are deployed on a company’s website or mobile app.
These tags, which are small snippets of code, are used to track and collect data on website visitors, such as their browsing profile, behaviour and overall engagement with website content.
Table of Contents
- Features of Enterprise Tag Management Systems
Features of Enterprise Tag Management Systems
Standard tag management systems (or solutions) typically focus on a single website or domain and are primarily used to manage the tags associated with that website.
Meanwhile, enterprise tag management solutions are specifically designed to handle large organisational demands, such as deployment on numerous websites, mobile apps, and digital properties.
Typically, tag management systems built for enterprise-scale provide streamlined tag management across all of their digital properties and can provide additional features such as:
- Governance
- Data security features
- User access controls
- Data layer management
- Event or campaign tracking
- Integration with third-party marketing and analytics tools
- Integration with third-party audit tools and QA solutions
This allows for accurate data collection and analysis, as well as a more centralised hub for all tag deployment and management needs.
How Can Enterprise Organisations Benefit from a Tag Management System?
For an enterprise-level organisation, the implementation of a TMS is essential to streamline marketing efforts and analytics processes that may otherwise end up siloed or disjointed.
Governance and Control
A tag management solution provides a centralised point of governance that helps manage tags deployed over numerous websites and mobile applications. This means that policies and procedures can be devised for tag deployment. Moreover, it allows for the review and approval of tags before they are instated, helping you stay compliant with privacy laws and regulations.
Improved Data Security
Enterprise TMS also offers sophisticated data security features such as encryption and tokenisation to help protect company and customer data. Furthermore, enterprise tag solutions also provide robust privacy capabilities such as user access controls that can limit the ability of users to access and make adjustments to tags.
Improved Data Collection and Analysis
Tag management systems help organisations to leverage data layer management, which allows them to create a standardised data layer that facilitates event and campaign tracking and also acts as an additional test point to validate the quality of data being collected (i.e. data layer testing). This, in turn, enables you to implement event and campaign tracking for quicker performance testing, as well as providing you with a more accurate measurement of website and mobile app engagement.
Advanced Integration
Lastly, tag management solutions provide enterprises with the ability to integrate with various third-party analytics and marketing technologies. These include but are not limited to; external APIs for specialised functions, CRM software, audits and QA solutions.
What Should You Look for in an Enterprise Tag Solution?
When selecting a tag management system for your enterprise organisation, there are several key factors that need to be considered to ensure that the capabilities of the TMS are well-suited to your needs.
Ideally, you want a tag management system that can integrate into your existing marketing technology stack, or one that offers its own marketing stack.
Furthermore, it’s also important to consider the vendor’s experience and track record in providing TMS solutions to similar organisations, as well as their level of customer support and ongoing maintenance.
What is the Best Enterprise-level Tag Management System?
Although there are no one-size-fits-all solutions in the world of tag management, there are some solutions that may be better-suited to small businesses rather than an enterprise-level organisation.
Here are some solutions to consider when you implement tag management:
1. Best Holistic Solution – Adobe Experience Platform Launch
Adobe Experience Platform Launch is an updated version of Adobe’s Dynamic Tag Management that previously used to be offered as part of their Adobe Analytics platform.
Launch works best alongside other Adobe Experience Cloud products, as the Adobe product suite offers an extensive platform that allows enterprises to manage their marketing technologies in the same place. The Adobe Experience Platform also provides a relatively open API architecture that allows integration with non adobe products, such as tag audit toolsets or data QA toolsets that can help bolster the accuracy and consistency of tag management.
Moreover, Launch offers a simple user interface that makes it easy for non-tech savvy users to learn and use.
However, if you do not intend on utilising the rest of the Adobe Experience Platform, then it may be counterintuitive investing solely into Adobe’s tag management software as a standalone product.
2. Best Budget Solution – Google Tag Manager (GTM)
Over the last decade, Google Tag Manager has been the tag solution of choice for many businesses and has now become the most widely adopted tag management system around the world.
Although GTM may struggle when it comes to enterprise-level application, many smaller businesses opt for GTM due to its free-to-use nature and seamless integration across other ubiquitous Google products such as Google AdWords, Google Analytics, Google Search Console, etc.
Tag Manager is also compatible with a host of other third-party solutions, since most tag-related APIs are predominantly built with GTM in mind.
3. Best eCommerce Solution- Yottaa
Yottaa is a highly specialised tag management system for eCommerce based companies who are seeking to improve website performance and load times across the board.
They offer a centralised point of control over all browser-based elements including dashboards, comprehensive analytics and security alerts.
Although their platform does offer integration with 1000+ third party softwares, their solution is primarily catered toward large-scale eCommerce platforms and may not be as adaptable for other enterprise models.
4. Best Marketing-Focused Solution – Signal Tag Management
Signal Tag Management is a TMS software made with marketers in mind. The intention of the software is to provide a centralised hub for seamless management across multiple cross-channel marketing activities.
Like Adobe Experience Platform, Signal offers integration into their broader analytics platform called Signal Fuse that pools data from a range of sources such as email campaigns, POS systems, CRM software, call centres, websites and mobile apps.
5. Most Scalable Tag Management Software – Tealium iQ
Tealium iQ Tag Management is a leading enterprise Tag Management System (TMS) solution that provides numerous additional features and capabilities for organisations with complex requirements or multiple high-traffic websites.
The solution allows for easy deployment and management of web tags, giving digital marketers control over their marketing technology stack. Some key features of Tealium iQ Tag Management include: integrations with top eCommerce platforms and content management systems, a high number of turnkey integrations, controlled and secure deployments, extensive privacy capabilities including built-in consent management, and load rule management via an in-platform data layer.
Are There Any Downsides to Enterprise-scale Tag Management?
Although tag management systems make deploying tags easier, they also introduce the risk of errors and inefficiencies, which is why testing is essential for maintaining and managing your active tags.
Tag testing and QA tools can help to streamline and greatly reduce time spent on testing. These tools automatically scan and ensure that your tags contain accurate data and are performing correctly on each page of the website. Moreover, these tag audit tool sets allow you to schedule tests to ensure that major updates to your website have not caused issues and that tags are continuing to function properly on an ongoing basis.
Why Data Validation Solutions are Integral for Enterprise Tag Management
Just as quality assurance for tag management is essential for online driven enterprises, data validation for analytics implementation, cookies and data security is just as integral to maintain standards across enterprise organisations.
DataTrue’s data validation solution can help integrate marketing analytics with DevOps, as well as business intelligence systems to break siloed workflow and help establish quality data governance for your tags and cookies.
With the help of an overall data validation solution, you can ensure that all your analytics are firing away without the constant stress of time consuming testing processes.