TagMan is a specialist tag management system that provides tag management, multi-channel tracking & reporting, and real-time attribution. But, every now and then, a prospect asks us if they could build it themselves. So, could they?
The strategic argument for building technology in-house can be strong, particularly where a business has this as a ‘policy’ but the specialist/division of labour argument usually wins out. But, just in case, here’s the answers we provide when the question comes up.
Reasons to buy:
1. TagMan is in constant development to keep up with the latest technologies that can be served through our container solution and, unless developers are assigned to this process internally, what has been built will quickly fall behind and become redundant.
Example: 3rd party technology suppliers regularly update their tags and this requires both a code change on the site and an update to the tag libraries in the container solution.
2. Legal requirements – the US FTC and the EU are in the process of introducing new legislation to safeguard consumer privacy online, with regard to the use of cookies. The latest regulations in the EU, for example, aim to ensure that users opt in to being tracked. With this in mind, tag management systems have to be either fast to respond or, as in the case of TagMan, already equipped to provide global privacy options in the tool to give the consumer control over how they are tracked.
Example: Discussions are coming to a head on industry self-regulation or ‘do not track’ privacy legislation but the consequences of changes could make a particular tagging system redundant and need changing.
3. Tag management technology is itself advancing rapidly and some of the latest features of the TagMan container (which are the culmination of four years’ technical work) include the ability to:
- Add, edit and delete tags while browsing your own website
- Growing tag library of over 150 tagging technologies
- Define new parameters without touching the code on the site
- Smart loading of tags (so disabling tags that slow down page load times)
- Multi-part tags (this is the ability to wrap code to different parts of a web page for use with MVT tags, for example)
- Server tags
- Global opt-out of tracking for consumers
Example: With sprint launches every four weeks, some of our developments are minor tweaks honed to improve the efficiency of the technology, and some are major releases to provide new functionality – but TagMan never sits still.
In the end, our answer to the buy or build question is that it took our founder Paul Cook – an absolute pioneer in online tracking – four years to come up with the best possible universal container tag and tag management system. He, and a large team of equally talented developers and support staff, work entirely on supporting and improving it. So, is it possible for a business to build its own? Yes. Is it feasible? We would say no.
What do you think of the buy or build argument? Got some examples of where ‘build’ has worked or where ‘buy’ hasn’t? We’re happy to hear from you.