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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

    Semrush

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/ASemrush is a relatively popular search engine optimization tool set from the company of the same name based in Pennsylvania and founded in 2008. Largely the platforms relies on competitive intelligence, and features SEO staples like backlink checking, keyword analysis to refine SEO and PPC campaigning and locate low-cost / high-yield keywords, analysis of competitors who co-occupy desired ad and listing spaces, domain vs. domain analysis, as well as site audit and domain tracking. Semrush can…

    $139.95

    per month

    Pricing
    Google Tag ManagerSemrush
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Pro
    $139.95
    per month
    Guru
    $249.95
    per month
    Business
    $499.95
    per month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Google Tag ManagerSemrush
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
    Additional Details—17% discount for annual pricing.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Google Tag ManagerSemrush
    Considered Both Products
    Google
    Chose Google Tag Manager
    Google Tag Manager is a little different than the other software we've used. This not only gives us the means for tracking our websites but it also tells us if we've implemented the tag correctly and how well the website has been performing after the tag has been implemented …
    Incentivized
    Chose Google Tag Manager
    If you are using Google Analytics, then it only makes sense to use Google Tag Manager. GTM has better Event Tracking, data layer handling, and modularity. It is well documented and easy to find solutions and community support for almost any imaginable use-case scenario with …
    Incentivized
    Chose Google Tag Manager
    I've used other tools like Hotjar for website performance tracking and Tag Manager is nicer because it ties in with Google Analytics and allows you to specifically create the tags you want rather than watching to see what happens.
    Incentivized
    Chose Google Tag Manager
    Google Tag Manager is naturally the first one to implement as I use Google Analytics. However I do use the others too as they provide functionality that GTM doesn't. But you do also have to pay for some of these functions. I use these tools for growth hacker marketing, so …
    Incentivized
    Chose Google Tag Manager
    5 reasons why Google Tag Manager has been chosen, and is finally a good choice: Cost to Customer, auto-event tracking, data layer customization and modularity, a library of built-in tags and variables, public documentation and community support.
    Incentivized
    Semrush
    Chose Semrush
    I've reviewed a number of tools, and continue to periodically. Semrush easily wins for the breadth of coverage, and it does them well. Some tools designed for a single task win in those tasks, but none compare overall.
    Some other tools I've looked at are:
    Authoritas
    Incentivized
    Chose Semrush
    Moz is really good for domain and page authority tracking as well as link tracking. When I attempted to use Moz for keyword research I found that it's capability didn't match the one of SEMRush.
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    93%
    Would buy again
    14 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    107 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    14 Answers
    98%
    Delivers good value for the price
    95 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    15 Answers
    99%
    Happy with the feature set
    106 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    11 Answers
    99%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    97 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    93%
    Implementation went as expected
    13 Answers
    99%
    Implementation went as expected
    95 Answers
    Features
    Google Tag ManagerSemrush
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of Google Tag Manager and Semrush
    Feature
    Google Tag Manager
    8.9
    58 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Semrush
    -
    Ratings
    Role-based user permissions8.958 Ratings00 Ratings
    Tag Management
    Comparison of Tag Management features of Google Tag Manager and Semrush
    Feature
    Google Tag Manager
    8.8
    68 Ratings
    8% above category average
    Semrush
    -
    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 Semrush
    Feature
    Google Tag Manager
    7.6
    69 Ratings
    7% below category average
    Semrush
    -
    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
    SEO
    Comparison of SEO features of Google Tag Manager and Semrush
    Feature
    Google Tag Manager
    -
    Ratings
    Semrush
    8.0
    154 Ratings
    4% above category average
    Keyword analysis00 Ratings8.6154 Ratings
    Backlink management00 Ratings8.4147 Ratings
    SERP ranking tracking00 Ratings8.4150 Ratings
    Page grader00 Ratings7.9129 Ratings
    Competitive analysis00 Ratings8.5149 Ratings
    Site audit / diagnostics00 Ratings8.0150 Ratings
    Site recommendations00 Ratings7.7139 Ratings
    Task management00 Ratings6.491 Ratings
    SEO Channels
    Comparison of SEO Channels features of Google Tag Manager and Semrush
    Feature
    Google Tag Manager
    -
    Ratings
    Semrush
    8.2
    140 Ratings
    8% above category average
    Local SEO00 Ratings8.1128 Ratings
    Social SEO00 Ratings8.0106 Ratings
    Mobile SEO00 Ratings8.5113 Ratings
    Global SEO00 Ratings8.1114 Ratings
    SEO Platform & Account Management
    Comparison of SEO Platform & Account Management features of Google Tag Manager and Semrush
    Feature
    Google Tag Manager
    -
    Ratings
    Semrush
    8.4
    125 Ratings
    0% below category average
    Multi-domain support00 Ratings8.1115 Ratings
    Integration with web analytics tools00 Ratings8.7119 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Google Tag ManagerSemrush
    Small Businesses
    Adobe Experience Platform Launch
    Score8.4 out of 10
    Serpstat
    Score10 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Adobe Experience Platform Launch
    Score8.4 out of 10
    Yoast
    Score8.5 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Adobe Dynamic Tag Management (discontinued)
    Score10 out of 10
    Google Trends
    Score8.6 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Google Tag ManagerSemrush
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.7
    (73 ratings)
    8.2
    (154 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.0
    (7 ratings)
    9.1
    (3 ratings)
    Usability
    7.1
    (18 ratings)
    8.2
    (10 ratings)
    Availability
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    2.0
    (12 ratings)
    9.9
    (17 ratings)
    Online Training
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.8
    (2 ratings)
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Google Tag ManagerSemrush
    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
    Semrush
    This is suited to plan for keywords in a single market, but it struggles when you need to consolidate several markets. It is well-suited to discover new keywords directly related to the ones being used currently to expand the content the company is creating to get better results.
    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
    Semrush
    • Great visuals for keyword position tracking, love that you can see the page that is ranking
    • Enjoyed the auto-generated reporting feature (specifically in the context of keyword position tracking)
    • Shows many different and useful views for competitive research
    • Great templated keyword research tools for those who are not as hands-on with SEO
    • I LOVE the Keyword Magic Tool for honing in on longtail, high-opportunity keywords
    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
    Semrush
    • Extra seats can be expensive, as [an] agency with multiple team members this can be frustrating
    • Backlink data is not great, misses out a lot of backlinks (better off using a specialist backlink tool like Link research tools LRT)
    • Tracking multiple keywords, across multiple clients can be costly
    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
    Semrush
    I [previously] used Semrush for many years and I cannot find any other tool being so complete and easy to use.
    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
    Semrush
    The interface is a little less intuitive than it could be. The data is often available but filtering and manipulating the data can be a little difficult at times. Expanded comparisons would be helpful since most of the time seeing more than a few competitors at a time allows for a better sense of how to forecast.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Google
    No answers on this topic
    Semrush
    Semrush available when you need it!
    Read full review
    Performance
    Google
    No answers on this topic
    Semrush
    SemRush performs well with few errors!
    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
    Semrush
    I'm in a FB group for Semrush paid users and it amazing! They are fast to respond, take suggestions and help with questions. I have not felt alone in using this product at all. Highly recommend their support team. When I had an issue I can jump into the group and they will help get me the right person to help or even tag their programmers to look at something that is going on. Love the group!
    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
    Semrush
    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
    Semrush
    I did it by myself and do not have a comment!
    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
    Semrush
    We have used both Ahrefs and Semrush extensively at our agency and Semrush remains the tool of choice. We find that Semrush has the largest selection of tools & features to use, with the highest accuracy, and provides top-tier analysis recommendations. It's really is the ultimate all-in-one tool when comparing other performance measurement tools in the digital marketing space.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Google
    No answers on this topic
    Semrush
    Semrush is flexible and scalable software which can be deployed across multiple departments and sites as needed.
    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
    Semrush
    • Using Semrush on behalf of our clients, we have seen some impressive growth in organic visibility, traffic, conversion and revenue, across multiple industries.
    • The site checks available with Semrush have helped us to pitch and sell our services, securing new clients.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots