Google Tag Manager vs. Qualtrics XM for Strategy and Research

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

Qualtrics is a good medium for creating surveys and getting analytics back for it. I think it's easy to learn if you are in the business of creating surveys or if it's part of your studies. It can be a little overwhelming for a brand new user who has never created a survey for the first time. So onboarding could be better.

• 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

• Qualtrics CoreXM is easy to use for quick one-time surveys or for measuring opinions over time
• It's great for sending/managing RSVPs for meetings or other gatherings or to collect important data like Conflict of Interest declarations.
• Qualtrics CoreXM's reporting and crosstab functionality is beefy and gets better all of the time. I'm always amazed at how easy it is to generate reports for sharing my survey response data and research.

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

• The collaborate feature can be clunky and sometimes we have to remove access and add a person back in for them to see the survey in their lists
• We have a contract through our university and more than one person has created their account in the wrong place, causing some administrative headaches as that is fixed so that we can collaborate on surveys with them.
• I wish it was easier to organize my surveys into folders, there should be a more efficient way to do that.

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

I was impressed a couple years ago when two heads of market research at Fortune 500 companies told me about them, and I've been even more impressed with the advancements I've seen in the last year. I like where the company is headed, and I look forward to using them again in a future role.

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

All the menus are very user friendly and intuitive. I can always find exactly what I'm looking for and can change anything I need to with ease. All the elements of the survey are adjustable with very little effort and without confusion.

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

Whenever we have had an issue with trying to figure out how to do something (even though the documentation is incredibly well put together) we have asked Qualtrics support and have always received our answer nearly immediately (I think in maybe 10 times, only once did a support person need to call us back). Qualtrics support is dedicated to solving customer issues right, and in the first contact, if at all possible

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

I still use it. It does everything you need an online survey to do. From heat mapping to complex skip logic and display logic. I use it weekly and it never disappoints

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

I like being able to easily integrate new colleagues by simply giving them a log in user name and password

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

]Qualtrics] CoreXM is great if you want something that is a little more [long] lasting and impactful than a simple survey engine, but aren't quite ready for something that is a long term sustainable program. I would put [Qualtrics] CoreXM squarely in the large, defined project phase. CX is more of the program phase, and other lessor vendors are great for the pre-project definition phase

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

• Increased productivity due to the highly intuitive user-interface and template saving capabilities.
• Reporting and analytics are extremely valuable. Our team can track responses and share feedback/results extremely quickly.
• If a user has created a great template, they can share to external teams quite easily. It helps other departments!

Incentivized