Tags let you collect data and run marketing tools on your website without editing your site's code every time something changes. In Data Activation, you create and manage all your tags in one place using the Tag Management System (TMS), and control your tags. This includes what each individual tag does, when it runs, and which visitors it applies to. This article explains what tags are, what you can do with them, and the main ideas to understand before you create your first tag.
What is a tag
A tag is a small piece of code that runs on your website. Tags can send data to another tool, load a tracking pixel, collect a visitor action, or change what someone sees on a page.
Your website connects to Data Activation through a piece of code called the base script, which loads on every page. Once that's in place, you create, change, and remove individual tags in Data Activation without changing your site's code again.
What you can do with tags
Tag Management System (TMS) lets you easily implement, manage, and maintain marketing and analytics tags on your websites and apps without needing to edit the site code directly. TMS provides the foundation for consistent data collection across your digital properties, helping you capture visitor behavior and power better customer experiences.
TMS covers the full life of a tag, from setup to measurement. You can:
Create tags from ready-made templates or build a custom tag for your own code.
Control when and where a tag runs with targeting rules, so it runs only for the visitors, pages, or conditions you choose.
Measure your tags' performance and spot errors in the tag dashboard.
Test changes safely with experiments before you apply them to everyone.
Key concepts
Page structures
Data Activation groups the pages on your site into paths. A path describes a set of pages that share a purpose, such as all your product pages or your checkout flow. You attach tags to a path so they run on the right pages.
The tag dashboard
The dashboard shows how often your tags run, how they perform, and whether any are failing. You use it to verify that your tags work as expected after publishing.