What is a tag?
A "tag" in the e-marketing world is something that gets embedded into webpages to allow third party providers to track activity on those webpages. Typically a tag takes the form of a small piece of Javascript which is injected into chosen web pages. Examples of third party services that use tags are Google Adwords, Facebook Pixel and Twitter Website Tag.
What is tag management?
Tag management is a way to bring all your third party tags together in one place so that they are easier to manage. Various tag management systems exist, including Tealium IQ, Storm and Google Tag Manager. These tag managers do not usually have their own tags, they just use the tags provided by other providers. Most tag managers also allow custom tags to be added, which can contain any Javascript or HTML.
Why doesn't the WMS support third party tag managers?
Because the WMS manages nearly 800 websites including the McGill Homepage, security is very important to us. External tag managers typically allow any kind of custom tag to be embedded, which means we could potentially have harmful and dangerous Javascript embedded on web pages in our system. This could cause damage to the site using the third party tag managers and could even affect other sites in the WMS. For this reason we need more control over what tags we allow.
So how do I manage my tags in the WMS?
To allow site administrators to embed tags in their sites while still maintaining a level of control over what can be embedded, we developed the Campaign Tracker, which allows site administrators to add tags on their sites as blocks. These blocks can be placed in any region on the page and on any page to track your campaigns. Currently the WMS Campaign Tracker supports Google Adwords, Doubleclick, Facebook and Twitter. Other third party tags will be added once they've been approved.
Ìý
