Who this is for: teams with a developer or web agency, or anyone who already has “Google Tag Manager” mentioned somewhere in their website setup. If that’s not you, the Easy path is simpler and does everything most vendors need — feel free to skip this. Either way, you end up in the same place: full visibility into how customers move from browsing to buying.
What is Google Tag Manager, really?
Imagine every tracking tool (Google Analytics, Google Ads, Facebook/Meta ads tracking) as a separate remote control you’d normally have to hand to your developer to install one at a time. Google Tag Manager is like a universal remote — you install it once, and after that, you (or your agency) can add or change any tracking tool through a simple web dashboard, without touching the website’s code again.
It’s optional. It does the same basic job as the Easy path’s tracking code, just in a more flexible way for teams who expect to add more tracking tools later.
Step-by-step
Part 1 — Create your Tag Manager account
1. Go to tagmanager.google.com and sign in with your Google account.
2. Click Create Account. Name it after your business (e.g. “Riverside Museum”).
3. Set up a container — think of this as the “box” that will hold all your tracking tags. Choose Web as the platform, and name it after your website.
GTM accounts list showing an account and its web container
4. Accept the terms. You’ll now see two grey code boxes on screen — don’t close this yet.
Part 2 — Add the code to your website
5. Copy both code boxes shown.
6. Send them to whoever manages your website, with these instructions: - Paste the first box as close to the top of the <head> section as possible, on every page. - Paste the second box right after the opening <body> tag, on every page. - WordPress users: a free plugin like “Insert Headers and Footers” or “WPCode” can place both automatically across the whole site — no manual page-by-page editing needed.
GTM “Installation instructions” modal with both code snippets
7. Once it’s live, click Publish/Update on your website.
Part 3 — Tell Tag Manager about your Google Analytics ID
8. Back in Google Tag Manager, click Tags (left menu) → New.
9. Name it something clear, like “GA4 – Main Setup.”
10. Click the tag configuration box → choose Google Tag (this is the same tag type that used to be called “GA4 Configuration” — Google renamed and merged it, but it does the same job).
11. Paste your Measurement ID (G-XXXXXXXXXX) — the one from Step 1: Set up Google Analytics on your website.
12. Under Triggering, choose All Pages (often labeled Initialization - All Pages) — this means the tag fires on every page of your site.
13. Click Save.
Google Tag setup screen with Measurement ID and “All Pages” trigger
Part 4 — Make it live
14. Click the blue Submit button (top right).
15. Give this version a name, like “Initial GA4 setup,” then click Publish.
Important: nothing you’ve done so far is actually live until you click Publish. Saving a tag just keeps a draft — Publish is what turns tracking on.
GTM Submit Changes screen
How to check it actually worked
1. In Google Tag Manager, click Preview (top right).
2. Type in your website address and click Connect. A new window opens showing your live site plus a tool called Tag Assistant.
3. Browse your website in that window. At the top-left of Tag Assistant, confirm it says “Connected.”
4. Confirm your Google Tag appears as “Fired” in the tag list.
Tag Assistant “Connected!” status showing tags fired on the live site
Next step
→ Step 2: Connect bookingkit and see your first report — but this time, tick “I am using Google Tag Manager” instead, and paste your container ID (it looks like GTM-XXXXXXX, and you’ll find it top-left of your Tag Manager workspace).
→ Want your developer/agency to track individual actions like ticket purchases as separate events? See Full list of events bookingkit tracks.