Having a Tag Manager within a Tag Manager

[AndreScholten]

This is the situation: country A wants a site that is managed by a worldwide corporation. The only way they can have it is by accepting the default setup as all the other country sites. That means that tracking/datalayer is implemented as it is, and is handled by Tag Manager B.

Now we want to implement Tealium in Tag Manager B. So first B will load, and then it will load Tealium as an extension. This is the only exception they're wanting to make on the default setup. All datalayer fields will be 'translated' to Tealium syntax. And all events are send through B to Tealium with a utag.link call. The rest of all the scripts/pixels/etc will be implemented in Tealium.

What is your opinion about this? Can/will it break? Will we get timing issues with certain scripts? Other thoughts?

[per_lundqvist]

You don't mention which TMS the Tag Manager B is, and maybe that isn't relevant since they all do the same thing. In our company we also use two TMS's, but the other way around. I load GTM from within Tealium. We have not had any problems at all with that, nothing breaks, no timing issues. We use GTM almost entirely for Google Universal Analytics with a heavy event/click model so a lot of data goes that way.

At the end of the day it is only matter of which container tag loads the other and the end result is pretty much the same since it is the browser in the end which decides (at least to a large - and sometime a bit obscured way - the actual loading order of all the async threads.

I would not worry too much about a setup like the one you describe. Some testing will give you the answer. I would recommend to invest in some additional good tag analytics tool which will give you a precise and reliable view of what is going on, like Tag Inspector.

[steve_lake]

Obviously it's not 'best practice' but in theory I agree with Per, it's 'just' javascript so in theory you should be able to do it. 

You will need to test carefully, and look out for timing and datalayer issues.  

Please keep in close contact with our support team or your account manager and we will be able to guide you through it. 

[pmeyerdk]

Hi @AndreScholten,

While earlier working at an agency, we succesfully implemented Google Tag Manager (GTM) through Tealium iQ (TiQ).

GTM of course ran a bit slower than normal, but otherwise quiet ok, and at least acceptable,

This was done during a migration form GTM to Tealium iQ, and therefore gave us the opportunity to "just disable" the GTM tag in TiQ, when the migration was completed.

I once tried to run a GTM through another GTM, and wouldn't recommend anyone else to try that ;-)

My guess is, that you will run into strange timing- and event issues, in connection to DOM Ready, Window Loaded and thing like that.
But that taken in account, you should be able to do it anyway, as long as you test to see, if you feel it's worth it, after looking at needed work-arounds.

Other than that, I haven't tried something like this with a combination of other TMS, but thought you might like my input anyway.

Best regards,

Peter

[iMettrics]

Hi, @pmeyerdk

Would you have some documentation about implementing Google Tag Manager through Tealium? I am new to Tealium, and I would need a guide to help me with this.

Thanks a lot. Best regards,

Agustin

[steve_lake]

Hi @iMettrics 

It's actually very straightforward using the GTM tag.  Just add it as a tag in iQ, and fill in the container ID and data layer name.  

GTM Tag User Interface

As previous posts have stated, you may see some effect on timings as obviously it's being loaded in a different way.  Testing and checking everything before you put it live is the key to success. 

Please let us know via any of the normal channels if you need any further assistance.

[pmeyerdk]

Hi Augustin,

Sorry for this late a reply :-/
But I can see that you already got an answer on this, and to be honest, I would have answered exactly the same thing :-)

[iMettrics]

Thank you so much for your answer. As you said, it's easy to do it. But then in GTM, what information do I have available in dataLayer?

[pmeyerdk]

Hi,

By default you wouldn't have anything in the GTM data layer.
You will have set that up by yourself.

[iMettrics]

Ok, Peter, I understand. And how can I add information to the dataLayer? I don't have the possibility to add code on site, I can only edit Tealium.

Thank you so much!

[pmeyerdk]

In that case I would probably create a JS Code Extension, and develop some JavaScript specifically for duplicating the Tealium iQ events I wanted to have running in GTM as well.
I haven't had a need to to this myself, so I can't shown you any ready example of this.

But it certainly depends on what you specifically want to do, and will most likely need some JavaScript code to be made in Tealium iQ.

Mayby you can find some more documentation about that in the community.
If not, then you probably need to continue by reading up on the GTM datalayer in Google own documentation, or get someone to do it for you.
My recommendation would be to dive directly into Google documentation.