GTM + GA4 Content Group
Tracking Playbook

0 Architecture Overview

Before touching GTM, understand the flow. Every event you set up follows this same pipeline:

GTM has three core building blocks:

1 Variables — Set These Up First

Variables are the foundation. You need these before building any triggers or tags. Go to: Variables tab in GTM left sidebar.

1a. Enable Built-in Variables

Click Configure (top right of Built-in Variables panel) and enable all of these:

1b. Create a Custom JS Variable — Content Group Detector

This is the core variable. It reads the URL and returns which content group the page belongs to. Create it once, use it everywhere.

function() {
  var path = window.location.pathname.toLowerCase();

  // Add/remove groups to match your URL structure
  if (path.indexOf('/brands/') !== -1)        return 'Brands';
  if (path.indexOf('/stories/') !== -1)       return 'Stories';
  if (path.indexOf('/products/') !== -1)      return 'Products';
  if (path.indexOf('/sustainability/') !== -1) return 'Sustainability';
  if (path.indexOf('/reports/') !== -1)       return 'Reports';
  if (path.indexOf('/news/') !== -1)          return 'News';
  if (path === '/')                           return 'Homepage';

  return 'Other';
}

1c. Create URL Contains Variable (reusable filter)

Optional but useful — a lookup variable you can use in triggers to match URL patterns without writing regex each time.

2 Content Group Page View Triggers

These triggers fire on page views for specific URL sections. You'll attach them to tags that send a content_group parameter to GA4 on every page load within that section.

Create a Trigger per Content Group

Repeat for each content group, just change the path in step 3. You'll end up with triggers like:

3 PDF Download Tracking

Track when a visitor clicks a link to download a PDF file. GTM's built-in click tracking listens for any link click and you filter by the .pdf extension in the URL.

Step 1 — Create the Trigger

Step 2 — Create the GA4 Event Tag

4 Form Submission Tracking

Track contact forms, inquiry forms, newsletter signups, and any other form submissions. GTM can listen for the native form submit event.

Step 1 — Create the Form Submit Trigger

Step 2 — Create the GA4 Event Tag

Option B — Thank You Page Trigger (most reliable)

If the form redirects to a /thank-you/ page after submission, this is the most bulletproof method — no JS dependency.

5 CTA / Button Click Tracking

Track clicks on specific buttons, "Download", "Request Demo", "Contact Us" CTAs, and similar actions within your content group pages.

Step 1 — Create a Click Trigger

Step 2 — GA4 Event Tag for CTA Click

6 Scroll Depth Tracking

Useful for measuring engagement within long-form pages like Brand profiles, Stories/articles, and Sustainability reports. GTM has a built-in scroll trigger.

7 Sending Events to GA4 — The Tag Template

Every event tag follows the same anatomy. Here's the canonical template to reference when building any new one.

// ① Always required
Configuration Tag:   TAG - GA4 Config   // your base GA4 tag

// ② Event name — choose the right one:
file_download        // PDF / file downloads (GA4 built-in)
generate_lead        // form submissions, contact requests
cta_click            // button / CTA click (custom)
scroll_depth         // scroll milestones (custom)
video_start          // video plays (GA4 built-in)

// ③ Parameters to always include on every event:
content_group:  {{CG - Content Group}}   // Brands, Stories, etc.
page_path:      {{Page Path}}            // exact page
page_title:     {{Page Title}}           // page <title>

GA4 Configuration Tag — Add content_group globally

To send content_group on every page view (not just specific events), add it to your GA4 Config tag too:

8 Marking Events as Conversions in GA4

Once GTM is publishing events to GA4, you need to mark specific events as conversion goals inside GA4.

Recommended Conversions to Set

9 Reports & Audience Segmentation

Now you can break down all metrics by content group in GA4.

Explorations — Content Group Performance

Create Audiences per Content Group

Go to Admin → Audiences → New Audience → Create custom audience.

✓ Pre-publish Checklist

Run through this before hitting Submit in GTM every time you set up a new tracking configuration.

In GTM Preview Mode

• Open Preview → enter your site URL → Navigate to a /brands/ page and confirm the TRG - Page View Brands trigger fired
• Check the Variables tab in the preview panel and confirm {{CG - Content Group}} returns Brands
• Click a PDF link — confirm TRG - PDF Download Click fired and file_download event tag fired
• Submit a test form — confirm form submission trigger fired
• In the event details panel, confirm all parameters are populated: content_group, page_path, etc.
• Check no duplicate tags fired (same event fired twice)

In GA4 DebugView

• Admin → DebugView — confirm events appear in real-time stream
• Click each event to expand — verify all custom parameters are present with correct values
• Confirm content_group shows the correct group name, not "Other"
• Check for any malformed values (undefined, null, empty string)

Before Going Live

• Set GTM container version notes before Submit (document what you added)
• Confirm GA4 has received test events in Events report (takes up to 24h in standard reports, real-time in DebugView)
• If marking conversions: wait 24h after first event fires before toggling in GA4

! Troubleshooting