Fullstory vs. Google Tag Manager

It was extremely useful in identifying places in our product where things weren't functioning, or where it looked like action was available to the end user but in reality, it was not and therefore caused lots of confusion. It doesn't help as much in other scenarios to see what catches a user's Eye or where they go if they leave our application as well as an actual in-person interview would help with eye-tracking software.

Incentivized

I use Google Tag Manager (GTM) daily and create tags/triggers for all of our client's websites. It is easy to set up but for some of my tasks, the process does get repetitive so it'd be nice to have a default setting I can use when I have to create accounts, and then tweak/add things to them as needed. It is a great way to collect data and have code on the site without having to log into the site builder all the time. It makes it convenient to make edits or add code after our client's sites go live with us.

Incentivized

• Tracks users' online experiences from start to finish.
• Makes it easy to share a customer's experiences with the rest of my team.
• Allows me to use different methods to find evidence of a customer's experience.
• Shows page insights via segmentation that help me know where to improve my site.
• Tracks error clicks and dead clicks for quick insights into site improvements.
• Integrates with HelpScout for easy access to customer problem-solving.

Incentivized

• Selecting elements on a site [object, class, cookie, etc] (to later fire an event, send some data, etc) is very easy with triggers. Want to add an event when someone clicks on a button? Super easy. It was many many DOM selectors and you can even add custom functions if you need to do something more specific
• In general, firing events in different circumstances is very easy mixing triggers and tags. You can track almost any element of the DOM and do whatever you want with it.
• Testing is a great functionality. Only you can see what's on the site and you can debug it easily by seeing which events or tags were triggered and all the DOM elements involved (and why they matched the trigger).
• Working in environments (staging, production) and versioning is easy to do, deploying changes in 2 clicks.

Incentivized

• The ramp-up time to learn the entire product can take a little while. There are just so many absolutely wonderful tools and different ways to look at the same type of information that it can take a new user a few weeks to understand and then more time to master. However, FullStory has a ton of training resources to help with that! A lot of my own teammates have taught themselves FullStory through those training resources.
• The UX of the product is totally wonderful, but there are tiny things that make getting to certain parts of the product slightly more challenging (like clicking into a modal in a modal). Sometimes buttons or links are placed out of my field of view, but those are minor things I notice because I work in UX.

Incentivized

• There are several good integrations, but there can always be more. Native tracking for call tracking solutions, analytics providers, non-Google advertisers would be top of my list.
• Documentation is just dreadful. Luckily there are some awesome folks out there doing crowdsourced tutorials (shout out to Simo Ahava) but by and large the Google Tag Manager instructions are worth what you pay for them.

Incentivized

It's been a phenomenal tool for us; every department that uses it has found something new and unexpected that it can do that they're really excited about. Even if we *only* used it for bug triage, it would be worth our time and money. The fact that we can use it for so many other things as well--gauging how customers interact and use our site, identifying UI problems, etc.--is above and beyond

Incentivized

Google Tag Manager makes tracking traffic to our websites effortless, which enables our developers to focus on other tasks. Setting up a new instance takes only minutes and additional scripts can be added/modified without touching the source code of a site in production. This enables our marketing directors to coordinate tests and experiments with minimal effort.

Incentivized

Because everything seems to be easy to find and it doesn't take long at all to learn how to use the product

Incentivized

No difficult obstacle to overcome but Google Tag Manager can still be difficult for many users to deploy. Sure the basic HTML script can be deployed quite easily, but when you start to require triggers, variables, etc, it can be a little daunting.

Incentivized

We've never had issues with availability

Incentivized

It seems the performance is really good and always loads quickly

Incentivized

They have been overall pretty responsive and proactive. The tool is pretty straightforward to use. Most of the questions we have had to work with them on our how to use new features or adjust our integration to ensure we are gathering all the data from all of our tools.

Incentivized

GTM does not provide support. This is one of GTM's biggest issues but it's due to the level of customization for each website. If your team thinks they would heavily rely on the need for a support staff it is probably better to invest in a paid service with a team that can support your needs.

Incentivized

I thought there was a little bit too much emphasis on AdWords stuff, not enough on the generic application of GTM.

To successfully implement FullStory, it is important to plan your implementation carefully by defining your goals and user segments. You should also use tags and filters to analyze your user data, train your team to use FullStory effectively, and use FullStory in conjunction with other analytics tools to get a more complete picture of your user's behavior. By following these tips, you can gain valuable insights into your users' behavior and experiences, and use this information to improve your website or application.

Incentivized

Planning and communication will help greatly with an in-house implementation. If there are large teams, try to limit the number of people involved to 1-2 developers (back-end dev may be necessary depending on your platform), one analytics marketer and one project manager.

Incentivized

Smartlook is software that records users on a website
and mobile app. Finding useful information within thousands of recordings is
made quick and easy with features that help you accomplish this. I have chosen FullStory because it is easier to use and has more advanced features compared to Smartlook.

Incentivized

We moved to GTM from a standard Google Analytics implementation. GTM is much more flexible and easier to make changes, especially as the changes relate to multiple sites and environments. While there is a learning curve when figuring out how to use GTM, I believe the change has been worth it because it helps us understand at a more fundamental level how our tracking works and gives us a lot more control over what we track and how.

Incentivized

Full story was easy to scale with the growth of our teams and organisation

Incentivized

• Triage for front end bugs - FullStory can sometimes help you spot a bug in action much more quickly than trying to recreate it on your own
• Observing customers use new features and understanding why a new feature may be performing better or worse than expected

Incentivized

• GTM is very useful to determine if a particular element on the site is useful (i.e. is it being watched, is it being clicked, does it help customers navigate through more pages). As an SEO person, I can use this information to decide what to optimize for but also to track progress and see improvements in engagement.
• With the use of Google Tag Manager, I was able to easily inject an A/B testing tool which lead to several improvements in lead generation.

Incentivized