Bad Data: Gaps In Tag Implementation Hinders Top Retailer Sites [Study]

Despite the fact that half of Internet Retailer 100 companies use a tag management system compared to just 18 percent of those ranked 501-600 on the list, their tag deployment rates — and thus, data quality — were slightly worse than those of the latter group. The key reason? Faulty implementations. Several of the elite […]

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Tag Management Data Quality Internet Retailer 100 ObservePointDespite the fact that half of Internet Retailer 100 companies use a tag management system compared to just 18 percent of those ranked 501-600 on the list, their tag deployment rates — and thus, data quality — were slightly worse than those of the latter group. The key reason? Faulty implementations. Several of the elite sites failed to have tag management code placed on every page of their sites, according to a new report from tag auditing firm, ObservePoint.

Overall the study found that 1 in 30 pages were not tagged across sites in both the Internet Retailer Top 100 and 501-600.

For companies listed in the Top 100, an average of 2.8 pages of pages had no tag for their primary web analytics system. Among that group, 7 percent of the websites were missing their primary web analytics tag on more than 10 percent of pages.

Despite less reliance on tag management systems, the 501-600 ranked websites had a bit better coverage. On the whole, these sites were missing tags on just under 2 percent of pages. Just 2 percent of 501-600 ranked websites were missing the primary web analytics tag on more than 10 percent of pages.

“This new research reinforces the idea that amid the emergence of new technologies, the need for transparency into how these technologies are set up is more important now than ever before,” said Robert Seolas, CEO of ObservePoint in a statement.

There are also issues of tag duplication causing data inflation. On average, the Top 100 sites had an average of 146 percent data inflation. Nearly a quarter (22 percent) had over 100 percent data inflation. That said, 51 percent had less than 10 percent inflation, with the majority having no issues. Among the 501-600 set of retailers, the average data inflation was 42 percent. In this group, 66 percent had less than 10 percent data inflation and a majority of those had no inflation at all.


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About the author

Ginny Marvin
Contributor
Ginny Marvin was formerly Third Door Media’s Editor-in-Chief, running the day-to-day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin wrote about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, Marketing Land and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.

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