Google Tag Manager (GTM) can spiral into chaos fast if it’s handled without structure. When a container is filled with messy and unstructured tags, triggers, and variables it quickly becomes impossible to know what’s actually going on.
Poorly managed analytics systems will always cost you later in time, frustration, and broken data. I’ve inherited enough GTM and GA4 setups to know the pattern: no one can trace what’s firing where, which events are reliable, or what’s even being used. That leads to bad data, wasted effort, and long debug sessions for engineers and analysts.
Self-Documenting Analytics
GTM containers and the events inside them should be organized clearly enough that anyone new can understand what’s happening without a walkthrough. I call this self-documenting, and I’ve always built systems this way because it just makes sense.
When a container is self-documenting, there’s no friction for new team members. The naming is consistent, patterns are predictable, and folders are logically grouped. Tags, triggers, and variables follow the same structure. Custom events use a consistent namespace.
It’s not just about being neat, it’s about building a system that explains itself. With this approach, developers, analysts, and marketers can quickly find what they need, troubleshoot with confidence, and make changes without fear of breaking things. It saves time, reduces confusion, and makes your tracking infrastructure resilient even as teams grow and change.
Naming Conventions
Using a consistent naming system for your analytics events helps keep your data clean and easy to understand. Without it, different team members might name the same action in different ways—like “Signup,” “Sign up,” or “User Signed Up”—which makes it harder to read reports or track what’s really happening. A clear naming convention saves time and helps everyone stay on the same page.
Object–Action Framework
One simple and effective method is the Object–Action framework. It uses a basic structure: a thing (the object) and what happened to it (the action). For example: User Signed Up, Form Submitted, or Invoice Created. This makes your event names easy to read, easy to scale, and easy to share across teams.
Segment originally published this as a framework for naming all of your analytics events with a common pattern. More details are available in there online course, which is worth reading for additional details and how to handle edge cases.
{Provider} {Tag Name}
This is something I do because it makes sense to me, there’s no known pattern or name for it but it’s definitely pretty clear what’s going on when it’s followed. I name all tags in a pattern like this: {Provider} – {Action or Identifier}
With this approach a your tags might look like:
- GA4 – Configuration / Pageview
- GA4 – Lead Submitted
- GA4 – Lead Received
- GA4 – Application Submitted
- GA4 – Application Approved
- GA4 – Application Denied
In many cases, I’m pushing the same events to multiple platforms for analytics and ad conversion tracking:
- TikTok – Pageview
- TikTok – Lead Submitted
- TikTok – Application Approved
- Facebook – Pageview
- Facebook – Lead Submitted
- Facebook – Application Approved
When tags follow this format, the container becomes self-explanatory. You can glance at the tag list and instantly understand what’s being tracked and where it’s going.
Cleanup as You Go
Delete variables and triggers you’re not using. GTM makes this easy it shows you whether a variable or trigger is connected to anything. If you see “0 uses,” remove it.
The fewer stray items you have, the easier and faster it is to work with your container. Keep it lean. Future you will be grateful.
Bad Practices to Avoid
Internal Acronyms
Avoid using internal acronyms like SFC or LP. Spell them out full instead (SalesForce & Landing Page) so anyone outside your immediate team knows what they mean. Assume a new team member is viewing your container on Day 1. Will they understand what’s what?
Legacy & Leftover Tags
Don’t leave dead weight in the container. If a tag isn’t in use, remove it don’t just pause it. GTM has full version history. If you ever need something back, you can restore it from an earlier version.
Leaving paused tags around leads to confusion nobody knows if it’s active, why it’s there, or who might still rely on it. In large containers with hundreds of tags, this becomes a real problem.
Final Thoughts
A clean, self-documenting GTM setup is one of the highest ROI things you can do for your analytics pipeline. It keeps your data trustworthy, your team efficient, and your sanity intact. If you’re having trouble trusting your analytics data, and you’re not confident it’s accurate then organization may be a large part of the problem. Keep a clean house, and you’ll steadily build that confidence over time.