Google Tag Manager is known for making it easy to deploy and manage analytics, remarketing, conversion tracking, and other types of tags across your websites and apps. And with the introduction of Firebase – Google’s new platform for mobile developers across iOS and Android – using Tag Manager or Tag Manager 360 to configure your in-app measurement has never been easier or more powerful!
Yesterday at
Google I/O, we announced that we’re expanding
Firebase to become a unified mobile developer platform designed to make it easier than ever to build apps using Google’s products and services – and Google Tag Manager is one of these services! The
latest version of Tag Manager and Tag Manager 360 for mobile apps has been designed to work with Firebase and to extend its capabilities for both developers and marketers.
Unified in-app instrumentation
At the heart of Firebase is
Firebase Analytics – a free and unlimited analytics product designed specifically for mobile apps. But Firebase Analytics is more than an analytics product, it’s a unified way for developers to measure anything and everything that’s happening in an app from key business drivers to detailed user interaction. This creates a single source of truth for in-app activity that you can share with other Firebase features and Google products. For Tag Manager, this makes Firebase Analytics the new data layer, which means that anyone who is using Firebase Analytics is ready to start using Tag Manager without recoding.
To get started with Google Tag Manager and Tag Manager 360, simply sign-up for Firebase,
sign in to Tag Manager to setup a new Firebase container, and then add both
Firebase Analytics and
Google Tag Manager to your app. Everything that you’re measuring with Firebase Analytics is ready for use in Tags, Triggers, and Variables in Tag Manager.
Dynamic app measurement
Firebase Analytics makes it easy to measure what’s happening in your app. But what happens if you mislabeled an event or forgot to add a critical parameter? By adding Tag Manager or Tag Manager 360 to your app, you can make changes to your measurement setup without having to wade into the app update process.
As experienced marketers know, without tag management, even the most basic tagging changes can take a lot of time and effort, require coordination between marketing and development teams, and pull resources away from other projects. With Tag Manager and Firebase, you’re able to decouple your measurement changes from your build cycles – and by doing so, streamline how your development and marketing teams work together.
One SDK, many options
While Firebase aims to make it easier than ever to build apps and measure user behavior, it’s not meant to be a one-size-fits-all solution. Developers and marketers often choose to use multiple solutions from multiple vendors in their apps. Google Tag Manager and Tag Manager 360 can help make sense of these disparate tools.
With Firebase Analytics, it’s easy to measure what’s happening in your app – without limiting you to a single toolset. Google Tag Manager and Tag Manager 360 let you take your data and send it to various other analytics tools both at Google – such as
Google Analytics – and with other partners. We’re thrilled to announce tag vendor partnerships with several of the leading app attribution solutions including
Kochava,
Tune,
adjust,
AppsFlyer,
Apsalar, and more. Google Tag Manager has long been heralded for its commitment to being vendor agnostic for web measurement and is excited to extend that same commitment to mobile apps. And our partners are excited too!
"We have always been passionate about supporting developers by making sure Kochava is always integrated with the best tools. That's why we're so excited to provide out-of-the-box support for Google Tag Manager via Firebase."
- Charles Manning, CEO of Kochava
If you don’t see the partner you’re looking for, don’t fret. We’re continually adding additional partners through our
Vendor Tag Template Program.
Get started at your convenience
If you’re already using Google Tag Manager or Tag Manager 360 for mobile apps don’t worry, your existing containers and the current SDKs will continue to work just the way they are. But as with any major feature release, we recommend upgrading to the latest version of Google Tag Manager for mobile apps – and Firebase along with it – at your earliest convenience. That way, you can be sure to make the most of your mobile tag management experience.
Ready for Google Tag Manager? Learn more and
get started today!
Posted by Scott Herman, Product Manager, Google Tag Manager
