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    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

    Parse.ly

    Score7.8 out of 10
    N/AParse.ly is a content optimization platform for online publishers. It provides in-depth analytics and helps maximize the performance of the digital content. It features a dashboard geared for editorial and business staff and an API that can be used by a product team to create personalized or contextual experiences on a website.

    $499

    per month

    Pricing
    Google Tag ManagerParse.ly
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Google Tag ManagerParse.ly
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeRequired
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Google Tag ManagerParse.ly
    Considered Both Products
    Google
    No answer on this topic
    Parse.ly
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    93%
    Would buy again
    14 Answers
    99%
    Would buy again
    78 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    14 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    47 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    15 Answers
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    76 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    11 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    36 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    93%
    Implementation went as expected
    13 Answers
    97%
    Implementation went as expected
    37 Answers
    Features
    Google Tag ManagerParse.ly
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of Google Tag Manager and Parse.ly
    Feature
    Google Tag Manager
    8.9
    58 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Parse.ly
    -
    Ratings
    Role-based user permissions8.958 Ratings00 Ratings
    Tag Management
    Comparison of Tag Management features of Google Tag Manager and Parse.ly
    Feature
    Google Tag Manager
    8.8
    68 Ratings
    8% above category average
    Parse.ly
    -
    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 Parse.ly
    Feature
    Google Tag Manager
    7.6
    69 Ratings
    7% below category average
    Parse.ly
    -
    Ratings
    Event tracking8.666 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile event tracking9.347 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data distribution management8.841 Ratings00 Ratings
    Universal data layer8.358 Ratings00 Ratings
    Automated error checking3.045 Ratings00 Ratings
    Web Analytics
    Comparison of Web Analytics features of Google Tag Manager and Parse.ly
    Feature
    Google Tag Manager
    -
    Ratings
    Parse.ly
    7.6
    7 Ratings
    6% below category average
    Lead Conversion Tracking00 Ratings6.23 Ratings
    Bounce Rate Measurement00 Ratings6.85 Ratings
    Device and Browser Reporting00 Ratings8.36 Ratings
    Pageview Tracking00 Ratings8.26 Ratings
    Event Tracking00 Ratings7.85 Ratings
    Reporting in real-time00 Ratings8.46 Ratings
    Referral Source Tracking00 Ratings7.66 Ratings
    Customizable Dashboards00 Ratings7.66 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Google Tag ManagerParse.ly
    Small Businesses
    Adobe Experience Platform Launch
    Score8.4 out of 10
    Matomo Analytics
    Score9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Adobe Experience Platform Launch
    Score8.4 out of 10
    Lead Forensics
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Adobe Dynamic Tag Management (discontinued)
    Score10 out of 10
    Chartbeat
    Score9.2 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Google Tag ManagerParse.ly
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.7
    (73 ratings)
    7.8
    (82 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.0
    (7 ratings)
    8.7
    (32 ratings)
    Usability
    7.1
    (18 ratings)
    7.7
    (35 ratings)
    Availability
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    2.0
    (12 ratings)
    7.8
    (35 ratings)
    Online Training
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.8
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Google Tag ManagerParse.ly
    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
    Parse.ly
    Parse.ly is a great tool for publishers who want to track engagement and audience behaviour across websites. With Parse.ly, we can easily track metrics like pageviews, time spent on page, and scroll depth to see which content is resonating with our audience and optimize our content strategy accordingly. Our marketers found Parse.ly to be an excellent tool for tracking the effectiveness of our campaigns. We can use Parse.ly to track metrics like referral sources, conversion rates, and engagement by audience segment to see which channels and tactics are driving the most engagement and conversions.
    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
    Parse.ly
    • Firstly, the platform is super easy to use, it is user-friendly and easy to navigate through.
    • Secondly, the platform also provides you the option to use filters to your best fit and adjust the filters according to what data you want to look at.
    • Thirdly, it enables the user to have live feedback on their articles and see what can be improved going forward to address the need of the readers.
    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
    Parse.ly
    • A more readily understandable visual guide to a visitor's pathway through your site would help understand what keeps a reader on-site.
    • The total page view number for the day should be more readily visible--on the overview page, not just by going to Posts>Historical.
    • Maintain the archive for longer than a year under all plans--it's a shame to lose year-on-year data quickly.
    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
    Parse.ly
    As an employee, this is difficult for me to comment as I am not directly funding or making these business decisions. However, it is a tool many get on with for surface level data that is useful to editorial teams.
    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
    Parse.ly
    The Parse.ly platform is very user-friendly and easy to use. User management is simple, and reporting setup only takes a few minutes. They provide very helpful documentation for implementing the scripts on your site and have great customer support to help with custom development such as implementing their content recommendation engine.
    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
    Parse.ly
    I rate this question this way solely because I haven't requested any support. I feel where I will eventually get support would be when we take Parse.ly up on some training that is being offered. We are looking to do that at some point after the first of the year and when our schedules support it.
    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
    Parse.ly
    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
    Parse.ly
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Parse.ly
    Parse.ly does pretty well compared to Chartbeat, particularly when it comes to historical information and analysis options that are easy for employees to use after some short training. The onboarding for Parse.ly is intuitive, and the scheduled reports take away basically all of the inconvenience associated with regular metrics reviewing. But Chartbeat wins in its social audience tracking because it can source traffic to a specific social post, which can show you exactly how your audience is coming to your content and where you need to put your content to be sure you get that audience.
    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
    Parse.ly
    • Sometimes in meetings our editorial director will point out stories that didn't perform well. To us, that means readers don't really care about the topic, so we'll pivot away from writing about that in the future. That might not be "business objectives" though.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Parse.ly Screenshots

    Screenshot of Overview in full-screen mode: Many Parse.ly pages, like the Overview, are TV-ready. Keep your entire team up-to-date with live, full-screen dashboards on TVs in your office.Screenshot of Overview screen: See a snapshot of what your audience is paying attention to today so you can make fast decisions about what content to produce or distribute. Customize it to show only what your team cares about by filtering it to a particular author, section, or tag. You can pick what stats and listings are displayed.Screenshot of Real-time posts page: See what’s gathering steam so you can capitalize on attention to every post, campaign, or section.
Real-time data includes the last 24 hours and updates every five seconds. It can be seen, filtered, and sorted on most screens.Screenshot of Historical posts page: Explore historical trends by post, author, section, topic, referrer, or campaign. Compare today’s performance to last week, month, or year.Screenshot of Campaign tracking: Easily tie in your off-site promotion to engagement with your on-site content using UTM parameters.Screenshot of Multi-channel tracking: Track all your content in one place, no matter where it lives.
Compare how your content performances on various distributed channels including your website, AMP, Facebook Instant Articles, and Apple News.