), and, secondly, you should add filters to this trigger if you want to pinpoint a change on a specific page or element. A sample timer trigger could look like this (fires once after 10 seconds on all pages): After you created a timer trigger, enable GTM Preview and Debug mode, then refresh the website you’re currently working on (in order to test how the trigger works).

Although this sounds very appealing, there’s a reason I don’t use this tactic. Google Tag Manager Timer Trigger: Conclusion. It holds information you want to process in an object that can be read by Google Tag Manager, where it then gets pushed to Google Analytics. Say, that you set the timer to fire every minute which dispatches Universal Analytics Event tag. Redundant or incorrect tags can distort data measurement and reduce your site performance. Even though it is possible, the solution will not be precise and your data will be inaccurate. Although the timer trigger is pretty basic, it’s one of those must-have weapons in your Google Tag Manager arsenal. Hello, That’s why I prefer other ways of lowering the bounce rate (which I describe in the nearest future).

All of the supported event listeners that can be utilized in the method outlined below can be found here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Events. Click Create. You’re now 90% of the way there. Once these dimensions are collecting data, you can view these dimensions as a Secondary Dimension in any regular report, or create a custom report using your new dimension as a primary dimension. directly into Google Sheets. To quickly check if you implemented your trigger correctly, you should see it show up in preview mode next to all of your other out-of-the-box triggers whenever a change event occurs, like so (check out number 8): var eventType = 'change'; // Modify this to reflect the event type you want to listen for. dlv – stands for Data Layer Variable. Then click the event and head over to the Variables tab of Preview and Debug pane.

Required fields are marked *. Thank you. Thanks Ana, you’re right that was it! Your email address will not be published.

So I'd not recommend you do this. However when I view the secondary dimension within Google Analytics the homepage (and other pages) seems to be picking up sessions against multiple topics which is incorrect as core can only be selected for it (and is confirmed in the HTML). And don’t forget to edit the timer interval (var interval) and limit (var limit) in the script above to match your needs. Here’s the code and what it should look like in GTM: Save this tag. If you’re still looking for ideas where timer trigger might come in handy, here is some food for thought. Do I have to add the click event in GA to elements or can I now use dataLayer.push to track interactions?

The data layer is a key part of working with Google Tag Manager. (If you don’t have an event key in your data layer push, you can alternately choose a delayed page view trigger like DOM Ready. These Variables will collect the values pushed into the data layer in step 1. How To fix it? Could you track if the user has scrolled at all and only then start the timer somehow? Maybe 3s timer is using a particular variable that is undefined at that moment? And you can fire that tag after the custom event occurred. If ALL triggers’ conditions are met on the same page, the trigger group will be activated and the associated tags will fire.
I have a question for you! Uniquely confusing way to track authors/categories in wordpress than the universal tracking code of GA…. Both timers are separate. I already have a GA page view tag that fires with the trigger type page view (but also the trigger type history change because of the way the website is coded). (do not change this event name). You should see the array of various parameters. (Updated 21 February 2019) The current version of Google Tag Manager was released in October 2014.

The first thing we’ll want to do is set up a Custom HTML tag that fires on GTM load that will act as our custom event listener. Now, I have a question for you: I’m working with an old codebase and we are moving from GTM to GA. If a visitor stays on a page for more than 60 seconds, a timer trigger activates and GA event called “Visitor Stayed for 60 seconds” fires. Since all Google Tag Manager events are populated in Data Layer, you can also ask your developer to fire custom Google Tag Manager events (a.k.a. Updated: March 26th, 2020. A lot of these aforementioned tutorials were written when GTM was in its infancy (GTM v1), when “variables” were “macros” and “triggers” were “rules” and the overall UI looked rather drab. Hope that helps clarify! It’s fairly easy to use and allows you to postpone a certain tag …

1 person stayed for 30 seconds. Some digital marketers use a timer trigger to fire a Google Analytics event (even though they shouldn’t). creating an event for every time the event fires. The information set in the custom dimensions cannot be scrapped ATM. Pro-tip by Captain Obvious: for testing purposes, create a timer trigger which fires after 10 seconds (or even less).

click), you’ll need to use a Custom HTML tag with custom code. You’ve just accomplished one of the more complex tasks inside GTM and hopefully have developed a new knowledge of how custom events can bring your tagging game to the next level. Of course, if you have a more accurate way to identify clients vs prospects, e.g. But don’t limit yourself just to these examples. Even if the visitor isn’t interacting with your website, it will count as an interaction in Google Analytics (because you just sent an event after a page is opened for more than 60 seconds). Enter in the name of the data layer variable to read from, making sure the name you use here exactly matches the name used in the data layer. Is there a way for GTM to pick this custom dimensions from there or is it mandatory to use the dataLayer for that? I usually just recommend sending this data in a pageview for sites that need to reduce their hit counts (due to GA’s 10 million hits / month limit). What do you think the best solution would be? At least that's what I think right now :), Wonderful article Julius, one question though, if I wanted to use the timer trigger but also needed to use a Custom Event trigger (the custom event trigger is linked to a cookie law consent solution I'm using that stops cookies firing until user consent it given), where the Custom Event trigger needs to fire first and then the Timer Trigger, how would I go about it? Step 2: Set up Custom Dimensions in Google Analytics Admin Step 3: Set up Google Tag Manager Variables Step 4: Add Dimensions to the GA Tags in GTM Step 5: Add a Trigger to your Tag. All lowercase with underscores for spaces? I’m stuck at step 5 as I’m not sure what my best option is. In the next field, select the variable created in the previous step from the and set the condition as does not equal to 0 (zero). What is a Timer Trigger in Google Tag Manager? For example, if you’re tracking page-related dimensions like page categories, those values need to be ready and available when the page view tag fires. Go to Triggers > New > Trigger Configuration > Timer and enter the following settings.

Under Trigger Configuration, select Custom Event as the trigger type. He/she might simply have opened tens of browser tabs (with your site among them) and currently browse a totally different website.