What to Look For in an Enterprise Tag Management Platform

Welcome to the first installment of Tealium’s blog post series named ‘Tag, You’re It’.  In this series an expert from Tealium will be discussing matters relevant to Tag Management and the Digital Marketing space.  At the end of each blog post we will indicate who will be writing the next post by saying ‘Someone, Tag You’re it’. In this post I will be tackling the following: What to Look For in an Enterprise Tag Management Platform.

Tag Management is a young yet quickly evolving space with just a handful of capable players.  My daily interactions with companies make it quite clear that there is a strong desire from the online community to understand what Tag Management is and how to differentiate between the players in the space today. I remember back in 2000 when joining WebSideStory we were in a very similar situation, one of the very first SAAS web analytics platforms tasked with educating the market and creating what would be the foundation for the digital marketing revolution.  So stepping back into my trailblazing shoes I will provide my perspective on what to look for in an enterprise tag management Platform, here we go!

Scalability:  Probably the most important factor in considering a tag management platform, consider the risk associated with entrusting your entire digital marketing infrastructure into the hands of a vendor within a very new space.  Scalability of the overall platform (not just your specific instance) should be considered for a number of reasons.  The most relevant are the inevitable spikes in traffic that will occur across any tag management platform.  If traffic spikes and the solution is not capable of responding or adjusting you will end up with incomplete, inaccurate or possibly no data at all.

Accuracy: Consider how the tag management platform is going about the loading and triggering of your tags and subsequent capture of the associated data.  Are there instances where your data might be at risk?  At the core, you’ll need a tag management system that lets you collect accurate data.

Usability:  Who is going to be using the platform? Make sure the folks who are going to be using the tool have a chance to evaluate the tool and decide if they are going to be comfortable using it.  For example, if the tool is being primarily used by marketing make sure it does not require the user to use JavaScript for configuration. It would be a shame to purchase what should be an enabling platform for your marketing team and then see it sit on the shelf once you go through an implementation.

Scope: When evaluating Tag Management platforms it is important to ensure your provider has the ability to manage any tag that you might decide to use.  Take the time to understand how the solution integrates the complexities of the more advanced tags such as Web Analytics or Product Recommendation tools.  A simple ‘yes we can handle any tag’ is not sufficient and typically will lead to a disappointing result when the rubber meets the road.

Customization:  Tag Management is not and should not be categorized as a simple container tag that you lump all of your tags into.  Tag Management can be a tremendously powerful platform that can extend the nature of your data and tags.  Make sure the platform includes a data management aspect, the ability to control and manipulate the data that will be passed into all of the tags that you are managing through the tool.  Data management allows a marketer to control exactly what data they want to share with vendors.  This is the promise of Tag Management, Digital Marketing is a real-time environment and a capable Tag Management platform should create the opportunity for Marketers to join in the battle.

Agnostic: Tag Management platforms should be completely agnostic and independent from any of your digital marketing providers. The promise of Tag Management is to be able to quickly and easily add, change and TRY new tools out.  Having an agnostic Tag Management provider provides the foundation for a dynamic and constantly evolving Digital Marketing culture.

Feel free to contact us if you have any questions about the Tag Management space, Tealium or Digital Marketing in general.  And with that said, Eric….Tag You’re It!