Google Tag Manager (GTM) is a must-have tool for anyone with a website as it enables Google Analytics to function optimally. GTM and Google Analytics 4 help them make sense of what is happening on their site and what they need to do in terms of UI, marketing efforts, and their business at large.

While Google has the largest market share among search engines, when it comes to video search engines, YouTube is the market leader and embedding YouTube videos on websites helps both SEO and UX. Having said that, it is noteworthy that many marketers struggle to use GTM for video tracking. 

In this article, I will cover how to track video views, pauses, and completions using GTM.

Let’s begin:

Why Track Video Views?

Video is unarguably among the most popular forms of online content even for business purposes. According to a recent study by Wyzowl, 91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool, and 87% of video marketers report that video has increased dwell time on their website.

With video being such an effective way to engage with website visitors, it's incredibly important to track how users interact with video content to unravel insights and optimize the overall user experience.

Step-By-Step Process To Track YouTube Videos Using GTM

In this section, we will go through the process of setting up YouTube video tracking with the help of Google Tag Manager.

Let’s begin:

Step 1: Go To GTM And Create The ‘YouTube Video’ Trigger

Go to your Google Tag Manager account and select the container where you want to create the trigger for tracking YouTube videos. 

Navigate to Triggers and click on the ‘New’ button.

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Now, click on ‘Choose a trigger type to begin setup…’ in the new window 

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Scroll down and select the ‘YouTube Video’ trigger

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You can also track the video progress by checking its respective box and entering the percentage values separated by commas.

Enable Add JavaScript API support to all Youtube videos for increasing the odds of proper tracking

Hit on Save

Step 2: Enable Configure Built-in Variables

Navigate to the Variables tab.

Click on ‘Configure’ button

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Scroll down to the videos section and check all boxes

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Step 3: Create a new Google Analytics 4 Tag

Go to the ‘Trigger’ tab and click on ‘New’.

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Now, click on ‘Choose a tag type to begin setup…’ under Tag Configuration

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Click on Google Analytics: GA 4 Event

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Next, enter the details including Event Name and Event Parameters:

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Hit the ‘Save’ button

It is recommended to use the same naming convention as Enhanced Measurement’s video tracking and choose only the event parameters that are relevant to your aims.

In the triggering section, select the previously created YouTube Video Trigger

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Step 4: Testing

Go to ‘Preview’ Mode and locate the video events. You can find if the Google Analytics Tag is fired by clicking on any one of them. 

You can verify it using Google Analytics 4’s Debug View

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Wrap Up

Tracking video views, pauses, and completions can provide valuable insights into how users are interacting with your website's video content. It also gives you an understanding of how well your video content serves their intention to know about your business/topic.

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By using GTM to track these events, you can gain pinpointed insights into which videos are most engaging, which parts of a video users are re-watching, and more. I hope that this video helps you track YouTube videos like a pro!

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Want to do more with your website but don’t have time? You may use Tagmate, a no code-low code (NCLC) SaaS tool that makes web tagging simpler and quicker with powerful automation and privacy compliant logics. 

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Try Tagmate now!

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