Google Tag Manager
Google's Tag Manager makes it easier for business owners and marketing staff to track how people browse a website. Netbookings is an integral part of your site, so it's important for it to support Tag Manager natively. It does, fully.
Most businesses won't need it. The Google Analytics integration tracks the whole booking journey on its own, and Tag Manager can be added later without redoing any of it.
When it earns its place
- You're running several tracking tools at once, not just Analytics
- You want Analytics, Google Ads and Facebook Pixel fed from one place
- You have a marketing person, an agency or a capable AI assistant to set it up
One tag, every tracking code
Tag Manager connects to your Google Analytics and also includes:
- Google Ads Conversion Tag
- Google Ads Remarketing Tag
- Facebook Pixel code
- Crazy Egg tracking code
- Inspectlet tracking code
- Any other custom HTML/JavaScript code you create or want to use
Once it's running
- Add or change a tag without touching your site or Netbookings
- Update a tag and data starts collecting instantly
- One container ID connects Netbookings, entered in the Integrations tab
What Netbookings puts in the data layer
This is where native support matters. Netbookings pushes the full set of ecommerce events into the data layer through datalayer.push, so your container has real booking data to work with rather than page views:
- view_item_list, when a guest browses a list of experiences
- view_item, when they look at a specific one
- add_to_cart and remove_from_cart, as the cart changes
- begin_checkout, when they start checking out
- purchase, when the booking is paid
Alongside the standard set, Netbookings raises events for the things only a booking system knows about, such as Flexi date searches and accommodation minimum stays, so your container can trigger on them like any other event.
Every one of those events carries the item and the item category it belongs to: Stay, Camping, Bathing, Dining, Spa and the rest, or your own names if you've set them. That is what lets you break any report down by the parts of your business. There's more on how the categories work on the Google Analytics page.
Connecting all of it is one field: enter your Tag Manager ID into Netbookings under Integrations and the Netbookings side is ready to go. When a container ID is present it takes priority and the GA4 field is ignored, which is the correct setup because GA4 will already be configured as a tag inside your container.
A head start on the setup
We have an import file that pre-builds the tags, triggers and variables your container needs for the Netbookings events above, so nobody has to define them by hand.
Being straight about it: that covers the Netbookings side, not the whole job. A working Tag Manager setup usually carries a good deal more that the business builds around it, which is why we point smaller operators at the Google Analytics ID instead. If you're going down the Tag Manager road, ask us for the import file and we'll send it through.
Tag Manager, Analytics & Facebook Pixel, together
Pair Tag Manager with Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel for a complete view of how guests find and book with you.