The most exciting to me is an update to Google Tag Manager that allows Analytics Event Tracking to be setup without writing any code! As a developer, it is an ongoing battle to keep Analytics running at its best with some random SEO/marketing group messing around with URL based events and sloppily throwing together Analytics goals without even telling anyone. This is a dangerous practice when the person setting up the goals doesn't understand how the site works.
Event-tracking is the best solution for tracking site data in a surprisingly large number of cases, but if the client doesn't communicate their needs to the developer and the marketing company doesn't reach out either then how can the developer know that Event Tracking should be implemented? They can't... and even if there is great communication all around and all parties agree that Event Tracking should be implemented, it still takes custom coding to make it happen. With these barriers, Event Tracking surely doesn't get used as often as it should.
With the new Auto Event Tracking in Google Tag Manager, a developer simply needs to implement tracking via Tag Manager and then the client, marketing company, or developer themselves can login and add custom Event Tracking without ever editing the code on the website. Too good to be true? It kind of is... Auto Event Tracking isn't for the faint of heart. It requires some Analytics know-how and a certain degree of developer style logic to make the pieces come together. In the end, someone experienced with Analytics implementations should still be generating the Auto Event Tracking rules, but this new system does allow for much better transparency and collaboration across all parties involved.
Thanks to Justin Cutroni for a good Auto Event Tracking video tutorial of the changes and features.
I am looking forward to trying this out on my next project. Anyone implemented it already? What do you think?
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