Tag_Management_CDOS_MS_120114

How Data Collection With Tag Management Can Change Your

Organization

Presented by Matthew Simpson

Head of Analytics, Daily News

About Me and Daily News

• Me– Head of Analytics at NY Daily News

– 12 Years of Database, Direct and Digital Marketing Experience

• NY Daily News– Top media websites in the country with

focuses on breaking news, gossip and entertainment news

– ComScore 100 Website

– Over 45MM unique visitors monthly

– 6th Largest Circulated Newspaper in US

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Overview

• Brief overview of tags and tag management

• Benefits and best practices of tag management

• How the NY Daily News has implemented tag management

• Other use cases

• Tag management solutions

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What is a tag?

• Tags are also known as tracking pixels, JavaScript pixels, and beacons

• Commonly embedded within websites but increasingly being used on apps and other devices

• Used by marketers and analysts for measurement purposes

• A vital component of many digital marketing solutions. Without tags, digital data collection would be nearly impossible.

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Where are tags used?

• Web Analytics• Retargeting• Website Optimization• Advertising• Affiliate• Search Engine Marketing• Data Management Platforms• Conversion Reporting• Email Marketing• CRM & POS Systems

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What data is collected?

• Audience Attributes– Browser/OS– Geographic Data– Demographic Data

• Audience Behavior– What your audience likes– Where your audience goes– Who your audience is

• Acquisition Data– Traffic and Conversion

• Third Party Data• Website Attributes• Almost anything depending on the

tags you use!

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Growth of Tag Usage

• 10 years ago – No tags on most sites

• 5 years ago – Three to five tags on a site

• Now – Over 50 tags on some sites*

– NY Daily News – Over 50 tags on our page at times

– NY Times – Over 40 tags

– Best Buy – Over 20 tags

– Overstock – Over 20 tags

– Huffington Post – Over 20 tags

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* Based on Ghostery Chrome Plugin

Issues with Tag Growth

• Adding, removing and modifying tags can be a manual process that requires IT development time

• Additional tags on a site means additional page load and slower sites

• Outdated tags mean outdated data

• Lack of uniformity in tag implementation

• Increased speed to market: under normal IT development cycles, getting a simple tag updated could take a month

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What is a Tag Manager?

• Consolidates all tags on your page and replaces them with a single container

• That container lives on every page on your site

• Within the interface of the tag manager, you add tags and rules that determine when and how tags execute

• A tag manager can also allow you to collect additional attributes outside of default metrics

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Benefits of Tag Managers

• Makes it possible for digital marketers to add, change, and remove tags

• Eliminates implementation errors

• Makes it easier to collect non-standard data

• Reduces time to add or make changes to a tag

• Helps keep current tags up-to-date

• Remove unneeded tags with a few clicks of a button

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• Tags not consistently deployed

• Tags missing on vital parts of the site

• Mobile site operated by third party

• Legacy tags remained on the site that needed to be removed or updated

• Page load continued to grow on the site with no clear way on how to reduce

• Getting tags removed or updated required IT time which slowed down other projects

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NY Daily News: The Problems

• No information collected on sub-domains, partner sections and non NYDN managed sections

• Missing or invalid information on mobile website

• Custom attributes poorly implemented

• Analytics setup as ecommerce site instead of media organization

• We couldn’t identify key metrics about our audience and our site

• Focus as a company was on non-actionable metrics and quick unmeasurable changes

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-

50,000,000

100,000,000

150,000,000

200,000,000

250,000,000

Homepage

/ny Homepage

/1.1533786

/1.140154

/sports Homepage

/entertainment/gossip/celebrity-beach-bodies-2013-gallery-1.1279193

/entertainment/american-music-awards-2013-gallery-1.1527615

/1.334059

/news/national/paul-walker-dies-crash-report-article-1.1533786

NY Daily News: Data Issues

• Needed easy solution to manage tags and update analytics

• Existing Adobe customer through Omniture– Free to existing customers

• Implemented Adobe Target for digital optimization software

• Allows for custom integration of any 3rd

party script

• No development experience required

• Long-term development towards complete Adobe Marketing Cloud integration

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NY Daily News + Adobe DTM

• Since September 1st, 2014:– All properties, sub-domains and pages are

tracked properly

– Data accuracy has never been more reliable

– Focusing on actionable metrics instead of big numbers

– Site analytics now focused on media metrics instead of e-commerce

• Going forward:– Can now track elements on site within days

instead of weeks or months

– Implementing A/B tests for the first time in company history

– Looking for ways to further integrate data

– Third party cookies no longer ‘run’ our site

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NY Daily News: The Results

• Adobe DTM

• Bright Tag

• DC Storm Tag Manager

• Ensighten

• Google Tag Manager

• IBM Digital Data Exchange

• Impact Radius

• Qubit Opentag

• Signal Tag Management

• Site Tagger

• Super Tag

• Tag Commander

• Tag Man

• Tealium

• UberTags

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Tag Management Providers

Questions

• Email

– [email protected]

• Twitter

– @pitchblende

• LinkedIn

– https://www.linkedin.com/in/directmarketing

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