Tags
A tag is a piece of code executed on your site that allows information regarding the site or its visitors to be sent to a digital marketing solution.
Example: Digital analytics tags collect information on site page views, visitors, and conversions in order to propose analysis of your site’s performance. Retargeting tags collect information on products viewed or added to the cart by visitors in order to retarget them to other sites via banners that highlight the products they browsed.
Additional information
Here is an example of a tag (Commanders Act Attribution tag):
Adding tags
From the select step
The first step of the deployment process “SELECT” displays the tags present in your container and allows you to add new ones.
The main area of the “SELECT” interface displays all the tags already present in your container (1). Each block represents one tag (2): You can edit or delete your tag by clicking on the respective icons in the block.
You can search for a previously added tag by solution name using the “All vendors” filter in the drop-down menu (3) or by searching for the tag name via the search box (4):
Click the green “ADD TAG(S)” button (1) to add a new tag to your tag list:
The Commanders Act tag library window will appear displaying the pre-configured tags in the interface. The tag library is composed of the following elements:
(1) “Search a tag“: Search box for finding a tag in the library by its name
(2) “All vendors“: Filter for finding tags by solution name
(3) Search by letter: Tags in the library are sorted in alphabetical order (by tag name)
(4) Tag library: All the tags in the library (click the tag(s) you want to add to your container)
(5) “Add tag(s)“: Click this button to add the selected tag(s) to the container
To add one or more tags to your container, check the desired tags and click the green “ADD TAG(S)” button. Your new tags will appear in the list of tags present in the container.
From the edit step
To start adding one or more tags you will need to access your container. You can do this while on the “TagCommander” Dashboard (1) by clicking:
The container’s name (2)
The “EDIT” button (3)
After clicking either of those buttons, you will be taken to the “EDITION” section. Tags can be added while on the “SELECT” or “EDIT” step within said section. In both steps, there are green “Add Tag” buttons.
EDIT
SELECT
The green ADD TAGS buttons will open the Commanders Act tag library.
Configuring a tag
Once a tag is added, you can configure it in the “EDIT” step.
A list of your tags is displayed in the left menu of the “EDIT” interface (1). Tags that need to be configured or validated are listed in the “To Validate” category (2) and have a warning (/!\) sign before their name.
Note: Tags that have already been validated are sorted by category. You can find a tag on the list by using the search box (3):
For each tag selected, a configuration window will appear in the center of the interface containing the following elements:
(2) “Expiration“: An expiration date can be applied to the tag
(3) Tag variable(s): Tag variables that need data layer data or static information linked to them
(4) Data layer data: Your data layer variables. They have to be linked to the tag variables
(5) Tag code: The selected tag’s code
(6) “Use Tag Cleaner“: JavaScript correction tool and preview button to see the tag’s code once its variables have been mapped with variables from the datalayer
(7) “Previous version(s)“: The tag’s version history; “delete” and “save” buttons
(8) “Rules“: Shortcut to the tag’s rules configuration
Expiration date
Setting expiration on a tag
You can apply a custom expiration date to each tag (1). Check the box to activate this function (2) and then select a date on the calendar or type it in the blank field (3).
When you activate the expiration function, it automatically deactivates the tag into the container on the expiration date selected.
This function is useful if you have added a tag for a specific campaign and you want it to be deactivated once it ends, so that your container is not needlessly overloaded with tags.
Additional information
You can be notified of a tag’s upcoming expiration by receiving an email 2 weeks and 1 week before its expiration. To activate this feature, you need to go to the container Options (1), click the “Advanced” tab (2) and select the recipients from the list of people with access to the container (3).
You can also apply a default expiration date to all the tags present in your container (3 months, 6 months or 1 year) (4):
Displaying the summary of tag expirations dates
You can set expiration dates for the tags in your container so that they are automatically deactivated when you have no more use for them.
To display a summary of the different tag expiration dates, go to the “REPORTS” tab > “Tag Expiration Summary“.
This interface displays the list of tags present in your container along with their expiration dates if they have one. You can modify your tags’ expiration dates directly in this interface by clicking the box and selecting a date on the calendar (1).
You can also filter the containers (2) or tags (3) that you want to analyze:
Mapping tags' variables
Important reminder: You must create a link between the information requested by the different tags in the container and the data available in the data layer. Adding data layer variables to tag variables is called “mapping“.
The tag variables to map are called “dynamic variables“, and they are designated in the following manner: #variable#.
They appear in the tag’s code, in blue boldface, (1) as well as above the tag’s code (2).
You must map these dynamic variables with the data layer variables available in the drop down menus (example: page name, user ID) or a static value (example: a URL or account ID) (3):
Additional information
If the tag’s code does not meet your needs, you can customize it directly in the “JAVASCRIPT CODE” section (1) as well as the “NOSCRIPT CODE” (2) section for browsers without JavaScript activated (this function will only work if you call the NOSCRIPT version of the container in your site’s source code):
You can modify your tag directly by transforming the dynamic variables within the code into data of your choice.
Example:
If you wish to hard code the ORDER ID, just replace #TCIORDER# (1) with the ID (2):
You can also customize your tag’s code by changing the static elements into dynamic variables.
Example:
If you want to make all the values to be collected in a tag dynamically, simply leave them in between pound signs. Then save the tag after making this change (1) and you will be able to map your variable with your data layer data:
Note: you can modify your tag anytime you want. However, please pay attention to its JavaScript structure: Dynamic elements must be placed between the ## and followed or preceded by a “+” if they are joined with static elements. The colored syntax in the tag code allows you to verify that there are no errors:
Configuring custom tags
A TagCommander “Free input (custom)” tag can be used to add a tag to your container even if it is not listed in the tag library.
To configure your custom tag, just replace the default code in the “JAVASCRIPT CODE” (1) with the code supplied by your partner solution and click “SAVE”.
In the vast majority of cases, you will see that your tag is rewritten so that its structure is compatible with that of the container and is called asynchronously. This is also done to prevent errors linked to certain JavaScript data structures such as “document.write”.
Tags are corrected by using the “Use Tag Cleaner” feature:
Uncheck the “Use Tag Cleaner” box if you do not want your tag to be rewritten.
Returning to a previous tag version
Each time a container is generated, Commanders Act saves the tags present in the container, thus allowing you to return to an old tag configuration if necessary.
You can display previous versions of a particular tag by clicking “PREVIOUS VERSION(S)” (1):
The “PREVIOUS VERSION(S)” window contains all the saved versions of your tag. The version displayed by default is the previous version of the tag.
(1) Tag version: number of the last tag version saved, name of the user who generated the version, and the date and time it was generated
(2) “Rollback“: button allowing you to return to the tag version displayed
(3) “JavaScript code/NoScript“: buttons to select the tag’s JavaScript or NoScript code
(4) Tag code: selected tag code (JavaScript or NoScript code depending on the option selected in (3))
(5) Tag versions: previous versions of the tag
To return to a previous tag version, select the version you want and click “ROLLBACK“.
Applying a rule on the fly
You can add a tag activation rule directly in the “EDIT” step.
You have two options:
You can select a previously created perimeter or constraint by clicking the drop-down menu (1):
You can create a new perimeter or constraint by clicking “+” (2)
The rule creation window will appear so that you can create your rules in the same way as in the “RULES” step.
For more information on creating rules, please refer to the “Rules” section.
Displaying the summary of tags and associated rules
To display a summary of all the tags present on your site along with their rules, go to the “REPORTS” tab > “Tags’ Summary“.
You can display the code (1), rules (2) and expiration date (3) for each tag.
You can also filter the containers or tags that you want to analyze (drop down menus above 3 ):
This report can be useful for displaying which tags are present on your site at a given time and for sharing this information with others internally. It can also help you find a tag from the list of tags present on your site.
Saving and removing a tag
Once you have finished configuring your tag, click “SAVE” (1) to save your modifications.
You can also delete a tag you do not need any more by clicking “DELETE” (2).
Caution: a deleted tag cannot be recovered.
Tags' activation and execution order
To activate or deactivate tags in the “GENERATE” step, just check or uncheck each tag in the “ACTIVATION” column (1) and generate a new container version (green button in the upper right-hand side of the screen):
All checked tags are active and all unchecked tags are inactive. The advantage of deactivating a tag rather than permanently deleting it is that you can keep all the tag parameters (mapping, rules) and reactivate them at a later date without having to reconfigure everything.
Note: Since a deactivated tag will be visible in the interface but not in the container called for your site, your container will not become needlessly cluttered.
To modify the order in which tags are executed in a container in the “GENERATE” step, just drag and drop each tag in the “RANK” column (1) and place them in the order in which you want them to execute on your site’s pages, and then generate a new container version (green button in the upper-right hand side of the screen):
We recommend that you place the most important tags at the top of the container so that they have the best chance of executing if your visitors change pages quickly without waiting for them to fully load.
Setting a timeout on a tag
To improve your site’s performance, Commanders Act suggests that you deactivate a tag if it takes too long to load. You can enter a maximum duration, in milliseconds, for a tag to execute. If the tag takes longer than this time to execute, it will be deactivated.
To add a timeout to tags in the “GENERATE” step, just enter a duration in milliseconds in the “TIMEOUT MS” column (1) and generate a new container version (2):
Customizing the tag library (whitelisting)
You can customize the tag library by restricting the number of tag templates available in the tag addition popin from the “Select” and “Edit” steps.
This “tags whitelist” feature is useful if you wish to limit access to the solutions in the library and only make some of them available to your staff. This aims at preventing users from placing tags you did not authorize into your containers.
The “Library management” interface is accessible to administrators and to custom users this interface was granted access to. The tags whitelist is managed from the “Admin” > “Library management” (1) interface:
All tags will be selected by default.
You can click the “Unselect all” (1) option and then choose the tags you wish to make available in your library.
1/ Select the site you wish to set up the tags white list for from the drop down menu.
2/ Check/Uncheck relevant tags.
3/ The “Select all” and “Unselect all” buttons allow you to check or uncheck many tags simultaneously.
4/ You have the possibility to filter tags by name or alphabetical order.
5/ Click the “SAVE” button to save your settings.
Must know:
When a new tag is added to the tag library by Commanders Act’s staff, it is automatically unchecked if you have created at least one tag whitelist for your site.
You can copy a tags whitelist from one site to another from the “Admin” > “Copy management” menu. To learn more, please click here.
A Custom user can be given access to this feature. To grant this access, click “YES” in the custom user options for the “Admin” > “Library management category”.
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