Question
- What is the difference between Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager?
- Will Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager do different things on my Thinkific site?
- Can I use one of these tools without the other? Do I need to use both?
Solution
Google Analytics is an analytics tool that helps you track, store, and analyze data on how your users interact with your site. Data from these interactions is tracked by using tracking codes that are placed on each page of your website.
Google Tag Manager is a tag management system that helps you keep track of data, in the form of tags. You can use Google Tag Manager to manage various types of tracking codes (also known as tags) from different analytics tools, like:
- Google Analytics
- Google Ads Conversion tags
- Facebook Pixel code
- Any other custom HTML/Javascript code
- ...and more!
While Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager are designed to work together, they are both separate tools with separate functions. Depending on your goal, you could use either Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager.
For example: Google Tag Manager is your best option if you're looking to track anything ecommerce related. If you're looking to track things like page views and interactions, use Google Analytics.
To learn more about the differences, check out this handy chart below:
| Google Analytics 4 | Google Tag Manager |
| Use this to track site/page views | Use this to track ecommerce or purchases |
| Can be used with the Two-Step Checkout | Can be used with the Two-Step Checkout |
| Can be combined with Performance Checkout to track views on the Thank You page |
Can be combined with Performance Checkout to fire tracking tags on the Thank You page |
|
Installed using an integration from the App Store |
Installed by modifying your Thinkific Site code |
On your Thinkific site, we recommend installing only Google Tag Manager or Google Analytics. The reason for this is that installing both of these tools can cause duplicate tags to fire on the same site page - meaning your results will be corrupted by these duplicate tags.
Installing Google Tools
To learn more about how to use these tools with your Thinkific site, check out these articles:
Important Considerations
- At this time, the Performance Checkout is not a theme based page so it does not support Site Footer Code snippets. If you would like to track ecommerce or purchases using the Performance Checkout, we recommend adding a snippet to the site footer code on the After Purchase Thank You page.