Overview:

Google Tag Manager (GTM) is a tag management system that allows you to easily add and update tags on your website or mobile app without having to modify and deploy the code directly. Tags are snippets of code, often JavaScript, that send information to third parties such as Google Analytics, Google Ads, and other marketing or analytics platforms.

GTM allows you to set up tracking for specific user actions (e.g., clicks, form submissions, page views) without needing to write custom JavaScript code. It also supports a wide range of third-party tags, making it easy to integrate various marketing and analytics tools with your website or app.

By managing tags through GTM, you can reduce the number of direct code implementations on your site, which can help improve loading times and overall site performance.

GTM is a preferred middle layer above just Google Analytics because companies may use tags for a variety of reasons and tracking purposes, and can then consolidate and differentiate that data before using Google Analytics for just their conversion tracking and review.

Overall, Google Tag Manager simplifies the process of managing and deploying marketing and analytics tags, making it easier for marketers and developers to collaborate and maintain a website or mobile app's tracking setup.

Our Integration:

We would fall under the “third-party” tags category mentioned above. When conversions (i.e. online purchases) occur on our platform, we can pass a data layer event to GTM that contains the purchase information. Users can then make sure that the data from that event gets passed to Google Analytics (GA) for conversion tracking purposes.

The event we generate is named “orderMadeGa4”. GTM tags that utilize this event can be used to populate purchase data within analytics tracking systems.

The orderMadeGa4 event data includes:

Transaction ID - unique session id related that purchase within Flybook Affiliation - where the transaction occurred, typically “Online Store” Value - total cost of the transaction Currency - **will always be USD Items - information about the items purchased

Item_id
Item name
Price (per item)
Quantity
Item category (activity/pass/ticket/etc)

Here is an example of how that data might appear:

dataLayer.push({

ecommerce: {

transaction_id: "6cc8ff50-b800-4ac0-b808-bbffb82d2b59",

affiliation: "Online Store",

value: 84,

currency: "USD",

items: [

{

item_id: "1 hour Zip Tour (Adult (2))",

item_name: "1 hour Zip Tour (Adult (2))",

price: 42,

quantity: 2,

item_category: "Activity"

}

]

},

event: "orderMadeGa4",

gtm.uniqueEventId: 15

})

The orderMadeGa4 event should be considered a “trigger” in GTM terms. This trigger and it’s associated data can then be used/referenced in “tags”.

Think of this as meaning that an online purchase is the important action (trigger), and because that action happened, we now want to capture the information from it (using tags) and do something with that data (e.g. send to GA).

Setting up a GTM Container:

Once a GTM account exists, users can create a “container” for that account. This is basically just a way to group all of your connected tags/triggers/etc.

The first thing to do is set up a Trigger based on the orderMadeGa4 event we send. Because Flybook is sending this to GTM, users will need to set up the trigger as a “Custom Event” type. The trigger needs to fire on an ‘Event’ that contains “orderMadeGa4”. This is basically creating a listener for the name we gave to our event.

The GTM code needs to be installed on their website. It will automatically be installed on our booking iframes once they enter the code in the Flybook account setup.

Connecting to GA4:

Now that our Event is getting picked up by the GTM account, the users can set up ‘Tags’ to take that data and send it to their GA4 account for tracking.

This article gives the details of how this is done: https://support.google.com/tagmanager/answer/9442095?hl=en

Basically, they are setting up two Tags: one that recognizes their GA4 measurement ID when it is loaded on the website and one for the actual purchase. The Purchase tag is the one that references the trigger they set up for our orderMade event. Both of these tags are set up using the customer’s “GA4 Measurement ID” from their analytics account, which is specific to the data stream they have for their website. This then allows GTM to pass the event data to the analytics account.

Setup Overview:

Testing:

GTM has a super helpful “Preview” mode (aka “debug” mode) that is accessible within the container setup. This is key for verifying that everything has been set up correctly and that the tags are firing as expected. This can be used in tandem with our booking tools in a few different ways:

Just testing on the booking URL (no browser plugin):

Testing the full process from the host website (with “tag assistant companion” browser plugin, best route):

**NOTE** Analytics tracking will never be perfect due to a variety of factors like browser privacy tools, cookie blockers, privacy measures built into Google itself, etc. So even in testing, I won’t always see those conversions appear in my GA4 account. HOWEVER, the testing in GTM should be perfect (or close to it) as far as triggers/tags firing.
Limitation of Support

Limitation of Support:

The Flybook will assist with implementing your Google Tag Manager tracking code into your account settings and is able to provide basic “tag” setup templates to assist with your GTM setup if needed. Beyond that, The Flybook does not offer support in the direct setup or review of analytics configurations. For help in setting up or troubleshooting your company's analytics/tracking, please refer to partners listed within the section “Experienced Marketing Companies” or utilize your own marketing agency.

This article can also provide some helpful tips for setting up your GTM account.

Experienced Marketing Companies

The following companies have experience in setting up, configuration, and ongoing maintenance of Analytics tracking with The Flybook system.
● TRK Creative
○ https://www.trkcreative.com/

● TOMIS
○ https://tomis.tech/
● Blend Marketing
○ https://blend.travel/

● Liquid Spark
○ https://liquidspark.com/