Challenge
Building Engines had a Google Tag Manager container with over 300 tags accumulated over years of ad-hoc additions. Duplicated landing pages, inconsistent attribution tracking, and no naming conventions made the container impossible to maintain. Nobody on the team trusted the data, and every new tag risked breaking something else.
Solution
I audited and rebuilt the entire tracking infrastructure:
- GTM Container Overhaul: Reduced the container from 300+ tags down to 18 using a modular approach with shared triggers, consistent naming conventions, and proper use of custom dimensions and metrics. Every tag followed the Provider-Action naming pattern.
- UTM Attribution Standardization: Established a strict UTM parameter structure for source, medium, and campaign values, eliminating inconsistent attribution that was polluting their reporting.
- Clean Analytics Foundation: Rebuilt the GA4 property with a clear event schema tied to actual business conversions, giving stakeholders a single source of truth they could trust.
- Platform Integrations: Supported new tag deployments including HubSpot and Salesforce integrations, all following the established container patterns.
Results
- Maintainable Container: A self-documenting GTM setup that any team member can understand and work with on day one.
- Trusted Data: Stakeholders across the organization came to rely on analytics for decision-making because the data was consistent and accurate.
- Clean Attribution: Standardized UTM tracking eliminated the discrepancies between ad platform reporting and GA4, giving the marketing team confidence in their spend allocation.