TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

Save this comparison

Save this comparison

Add Product

Recommended Comparisons

    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Google Tag Manager

    Score9.5 out of 10
    N/AFrom Google, the Google Tag Manager is a tag management application that facilitates creating, embedding, and updating tags across websites and mobile apps. It is a free option, vs. the company's enterprise-tier Google Tag Manager 360.

    $0

    Heap

    Score8.1 out of 10
    Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
    Heap is a web analytics platform captures every user interaction on web iOS with no extra code. The tool allows you to track events and set up funnels to understand user flow and dropoff. It also provides visualization tools to track trends over time.

    $0

    per month

    Pricing
    Google Tag ManagerHeap
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Free
    $0
    Up to 10k sessions/month
    Growth
    Starting at $3,600 annually
    Up to 300k sessions/year
    Pro
    Contact Heap Sales
    Custom sessions per month and unlimited projects
    Premier
    Contact Heap Sales
    Custom sessions per month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Google Tag ManagerHeap
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
    Additional Details—Heap pricing is based on session volume. A session is a period of activity from a single user on your app or website. It can include many pageviews or events.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Google Tag ManagerHeap
    Considered Both Products
    Google
    Chose Google Tag Manager
    Firstly, using GTM doesn't mean you can't use these other products if you choose. GTM is free, so there is no real "cost" to using it. The other products are meant for a slightly less technical audience, and they tend to do a better job of hand holding. The advantage for tag …
    Incentivized
    Contentsquare
    Chose Heap
    Heap has augmented our Google Analytics. While we still primarily use GA, Heap has added in areas where Google Analytics has fallen short.
    Incentivized
    Chose Heap
    Simplicity and information flow.
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    93%
    Would buy again
    14 Answers
    95%
    Would buy again
    216 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    14 Answers
    99%
    Delivers good value for the price
    149 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    15 Answers
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    215 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    11 Answers
    97%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    117 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    93%
    Implementation went as expected
    13 Answers
    89%
    Implementation went as expected
    121 Answers
    Features
    Google Tag ManagerHeap
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of Google Tag Manager and Heap
    Feature
    Google Tag Manager
    9.0
    58 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Heap
    -
    Ratings
    Role-based user permissions9.058 Ratings00 Ratings
    Tag Management
    Comparison of Tag Management features of Google Tag Manager and Heap
    Feature
    Google Tag Manager
    8.8
    68 Ratings
    8% above category average
    Heap
    -
    Ratings
    Tag library9.263 Ratings00 Ratings
    Tag variable mapping8.955 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ease of writing custom tags7.367 Ratings00 Ratings
    Rules-driven tag execution8.162 Ratings00 Ratings
    Tag performance monitoring10.056 Ratings00 Ratings
    Page load times8.849 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile app tagging9.334 Ratings00 Ratings
    Library of JavaScript extensions8.838 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data Management & Integrity
    Comparison of Data Management & Integrity features of Google Tag Manager and Heap
    Feature
    Google Tag Manager
    7.6
    69 Ratings
    7% below category average
    Heap
    -
    Ratings
    Event tracking8.666 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile event tracking9.447 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data distribution management8.841 Ratings00 Ratings
    Universal data layer8.358 Ratings00 Ratings
    Automated error checking3.045 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Google Tag ManagerHeap
    Small Businesses
    Adobe Experience Platform Launch
    Score8.4 out of 10
    Mixpanel
    Score8.3 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Adobe Experience Platform Launch
    Score8.4 out of 10
    Gainsight PX
    Score7.6 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Adobe Dynamic Tag Management (discontinued)
    Score10 out of 10
    Gainsight PX
    Score7.6 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Google Tag ManagerHeap
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.7
    (73 ratings)
    8.4
    (233 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.0
    (7 ratings)
    9.3
    (9 ratings)
    Usability
    7.1
    (18 ratings)
    9.0
    (65 ratings)
    Availability
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.4
    (61 ratings)
    Support Rating
    2.0
    (12 ratings)
    9.0
    (8 ratings)
    Online Training
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.8
    (2 ratings)
    9.0
    (3 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.3
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Google Tag ManagerHeap
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Google
    I have found Google Tag Manager as the go to solution for managing all of your event and conversion tags for your website. Not only does it make it easy to manage all of your tags in the one place, it is fairly intuitive to use and there is plenty of videos and help documentation online to help set up what ever you need. No scenarios come to mind at the moment on where it is less appropriate to use.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Contentsquare
    Scenarios when Heap was well suited: It is when a user claims that he encountered a bug without giving us the details of the error message. Scenarios where it is less appropriate: Its when we try to capture user interaction in our mobile app
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Google
    • 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
    Read full review
    Contentsquare
    • Realtime interactions which are captured automatically is a unique feature which no other product offers.
    • Low code implementation is a big plus for marketing teams, as there is less dependency on engineering
    • Detailed customer behaviours can be studied with captured replay sessions
    • Due to all the above points - it helped to improve customer experience
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Google
    • 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
    Read full review
    Contentsquare
    • I think Heap can improve its onboarding; I would love to see some info that is helpful for someone who isn't in Heap every single day.
    • Sharing dashboards can be tricky, it feels like a huge learning curve that I already have forgotten how to do.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Google
    I haven't found another option for us to use especially one that is free. Down the road we may go a different route but for now GTM is a good option and does what we need it to do. It'd be nice to get more support or more integrations but with the free version there's only so much one can expect to get I suppose.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Contentsquare
    It's a great platform. I'm glad that one of our product managers introduced it because it has allowed us to create all kinds of new functionality. We're not only able to create a better product experience from our communications because of Heap, but we're also able to generate all kinds of helpful analysis.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Google
    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
    Read full review
    Contentsquare
    On a scale from 1-10, I find Heap to be incredibly user-friendly and easy to use. I enjoyed the training videos available and was quickly able to pick up how to create events and reports to track user interactions on our product. I would recommend Heap for its usability first and foremost.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Google
    No answers on this topic
    Contentsquare
    I've never run into any issues with Heap's availability, Heap is always there when I need it. I haven't run into any issues like application errors or unplanned outages during my 2+ years of using Heap. Each and every time I log in to Heap I have a completely functional experience
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    Google
    No answers on this topic
    Contentsquare
    Heap doesn't affect page load times considerably nor has a large impact [on] our overall score, as far as page loading times inside of the tool its pretty reliable to retrieve data as much as "instant" that it can be the delay seems to be on data getting tracked into the servers to be read but it's not significant.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Google
    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
    Read full review
    Contentsquare
    Heap support has allowed us to troubleshoot and test a lot of different items. Their support team is always helpful and friendly, even when we come to them with the most complicated questions. I think this greatly improves the value proposition of the product because their support team is knowledgable and friendly.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Google
    I thought there was a little bit too much emphasis on AdWords stuff, not enough on the generic application of GTM.
    Read full review
    Contentsquare
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Google
    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
    Read full review
    Contentsquare
    The implementation was smooth and easy. The Heap team helped us with implementation and it went great! Within a few weeks, we were fully up and running and utilizing the platform to its full capability. This is an additional thing that has made this platform so great and we couldn't recommend it enough.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Google
    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
    Read full review
    Contentsquare
    Heap offers a ton of functionality on a single platform.It also has an smart data science layer to offers suggestions for next steps in the analysis, allowing us to explore alternative paths we may not think to take. The low-code option for updating data is appealing, and there is a lot of automation with minimal engineering effort.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Google
    No answers on this topic
    Contentsquare
    The most challenging part of using Heap in a growing organization is the naming and structure in which reports and dashboards are organized. I work within the marketing department and our Heap leader internally works within the IT/Product department, which makes it challenging because we often don't speak the same language, so the learning curve has been steep without any specific use-case examples to leverage online.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Google
    • 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
    Read full review
    Contentsquare
    • It has helped us make decisions on what products to scope for our MVP based on the usage data.
    • It's allowed us to measure success with our beta product.
    • It's helped us view our conversion rates in an easy and usable manner.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Heap Screenshots

    Screenshot of Dashboard in Heap (Use to get Product or User Behavior Insights)Screenshot of Effort Analysis provides the first-ever quantitative measurement of user friction, capturing the difficulty users face when moving through every step of every user flow across the digital experience.Screenshot of Heap Illuminate looks for the most common events between two steps in a funnel and generates a Top Events table that displays how well paths including different events convert to the next step so you can understand how that behavior is helping or hurting conversion.Screenshot of From Top Events you can choose an event and use Path Comparison to fork your funnel and see how the selected behavior impacts conversion downstream.