What Is Tag Management?

Tag management is a system for efficiently overseeing and updating the various marketing tags that an organization embeds in its websites and mobile applications.

What is tagging? A “tag” is simply a small amount of code, sometimes referred to as a pixel, that marketers embed in webpages or mobile apps to collect information about site visitors. The tag then transmits that information to other systems, such as software tools for website analytics, marketing automation, and conversion rate optimization. Since digital marketers use many such tags across multiple web and mobile properties—and frequently add, remove, or update those tags—they employ a tag management system to streamline the process.

How does a tag management system work? A management system simplifies the tagging process by storing a set of master code, or tags, in a centralized user interface. This enables marketers and other professionals to automate a variety of tag management tasks. For example, marketers can identify and remove broken tags without needing to write or update code on every page where that tag can be found.

The breadth of different marketing tags, coupled with the expansive, ever-changing inventory of web and mobile pages those tags live on, makes manual tag management an onerous task. Tag management platforms enable marketers to view, change, add, or remove tags in a far more efficient manner than if they had to do so on their own. A tag management system also offers an interface that doesn’t require programming language skills. This means that marketers and other businesspeople can perform website tag management tasks without needing to write source code or create a change request with a software development team.