How Google Tag Manager Update Impacts Healthcare Marketers

As the digital marketing landscape evolves, Google is poised to implement significant changes to Google Tag Manager (GTM) that will take effect on April 10, 2025. This update is designed to enhance tracking accuracy and improve the reliability of measurement data, which is particularly crucial for healthcare marketers looking to optimize their campaigns. By streamlining data collection processes and confirming compliance, these changes will provide marketers with better insights and open up new opportunities for campaign optimization.

The update will facilitate easier access to key features such as enhanced conversions and cross-domain tracking, enabling marketers to better understand attribution and customer journeys. The adjustments will allow for more precise, real-time data with the automatic application of user-provided data settings, ultimately simplifying the process of maximizing ad performance and return on investment (ROI).

Understanding Google Tag Manager Updates 

Google's update entails several key changes that healthcare marketers should be aware of:

1. Improved Tag Loading Efficiency: GTM containers with Google Ads and Floodlight tags will now prioritize loading a Google tag before firing events. For healthcare marketers, this improves tracking efficiency and accuracy in analyzing user interactions.
2. Streamlined Feature Implementation: Healthcare marketers can now quickly enable enhanced conversions, cross-domain tracking, and auto-event tracking directly within Google tag configuration settings. This allows for faster adjustments to marketing campaigns in a complex regulatory landscape.
3. Improved Data Accuracy and Insights: Healthcare marketers will automatically activate User-Provided Data collection across various events by accepting customer data terms of service. This improvement significantly enhances data accuracy, allowing marketers to gain deeper insights into patient behaviors and preferences.

Implications for Healthcare Marketers

The primary objective of this update is to improve tracking accuracy and secure a more reliable flow of measurement data. These improvements have the potential to provide valuable insights into campaign performance, empowering healthcare marketers to optimize their strategies more effectively.

While the update aims to streamline data collection and standardize compliance by automatically applying user-defined settings, it does raise some compliance concerns. Notably, paused tags within your system will still load, even if they are not actively set to track events. This could inadvertently expose you to data collection through those tags. 

It’s essential to be cautious about third-party tags, which are snippets of code from external services that can track user behavior and have implications for privacy and compliance.

Jane Crosby, EVP of Strategy & Business Development at True North, highlights the importance of having a compliant measurement solution. 

"If you've built your measurement solution in a compliant system like a CDP or utilize server-side tagging, you're in the clear,” Crosby says. “However, healthcare marketers should address any paused or non-compliant tags in GTM before the update takes effect on April 10, 2025. It's crucial to revisit your tagging strategy to mitigate any compliance risks before the update is implemented."

What Healthcare Marketers Need to Do 

To adapt to these forthcoming changes, healthcare marketers are advised to take a step-by-step approach:

1. Audit Your Tags: Make sure all of your event tags are built into a complaint measurement solution like a Customer Data Platform (CDP) or via server-side tagging. 
2. Remove Unnecessary Tags: If paused tags or other rogue tags are no longer necessary and don’t need to be migrated to a compliant setup, delete them before April 10.
3. Leverage Google Analytics: Incorporate Google Analytics into your measurement strategy to complement your GTM setup, which allows you to effectively track and analyze user interactions across your digital assets.

Final Thoughts

With healthcare marketing metrics becoming increasingly complex, the importance of adapting to these technological advancements cannot be overstated. By leveraging Google's updated GTM functionalities effectively, healthcare marketers can improve their attribution models, analyze customer journeys more effectively, and ultimately set up their marketing strategies for greater success.

For healthcare marketing professionals feeling overwhelmed by the evolving landscape of measurement and analytics, True North's dedicated team is here to help navigate these changes and optimize your marketing efforts effectively. 

Contact our team today to learn how we can help elevate your marketing strategies and align with strong compliance standards with the upcoming Google Tag Manager update and beyond.