Dynamic remarketing allows advertisers to show tailored ads to users who have previously interacted with their website or mobile app. It’s essential in a performance marketing strategy because it helps advertisers re-engage with potential customers who might have left the website without making a purchase by reminding them of the products they showed interest in.
This feature is actually available in Google Ads. However, to make it work, a very simple set up has to be done through Google Tag Manager.
In this article, you’ll learn how to:
- Set up Dynamic remarketing through GTM
- Debug your implementation
Before you begin
Before starting the set up of Dynamic Remarketing in GTM, there are a few prerequisites :
- Having a product feed implemented in Google Merchant Center (GMC)
- Enable Dynamic remarketing in GMC under the Growth Section of your account
- Testing the dataLayer of your website. You need to make sure that the following events are being pushed :
- view_search_results
- view_item_list
- view_item
- add_to_cart
- purchase
- Also, you need to check if during these steps of the customer journey, the item_id and value are pushed in the dataLayer as well. If it’s not the case yet, you’ll have to make the necessary changes to your dataLayer.
- Having a conversion linker implemented in your GTM container. More information here.
- Pushing the business vertical in your dataLayer. It’s not mandatory, but recommended by Google.
How to set it up?
First step : Activate remarketing in Google Ads
Before diving into the GTM set up, you need to verify if Dynamic Remarketing is activated in Google Ads. To do so, go to tools and settings > audience manager > your data sources.
If your Google Tag hasn’t been implemented yet, find more information under this link.
When you have your Google Ads tag, click on the three dots then “edit source”. Then you need to make sure that remarketing is correctly selected, like on the image below.
After that, press ‘’save and continue’’ and on the next page, you’ll find the ID that will be needed for the GTM set up.
Second step : GTM set up
You’ll have to set up dynamic remarketing tags in GTM for the following events (one tag per event) :
- view_search_results
- view_item_list
- view_item
- add_to_cart
- purchase
So go to your GTM container, and create a new tag. As a tag configuration, we’ll choose the Google Ads Remarketing Tag.
Just like for every Google Ads tag, you’ll have to put a conversion ID - the one that was available in Google Ads in the previous step.
Still in the tag configuration, you’ll have to tick the box “Send dynamic remarketing data”
Then you need to fill :
- Event Name : type in the name of the event, or use the dataLayer variable ‘’Event”. You can use the dynamic variable if it’s pushed correctly in your client’s website (respecting the Google naming convention). If it’s not the case (for example, if your add_to_cart is named click_button_add_to_cart), type in the name of the event, and pay attention to respecting the Google naming convention.
- Event Value : Use the dataLayer variable pushed at every step that indicates the value or price of your item(s).
- Event Items : Use or create a dataLayer variable that captures all the items information.
This is how it should look like :
Now, you need to add all the triggers linked to the events you want your tags to fire on (remember : view_search_results, view_item_list, view_item, add_to_cart and purchase).
So for example, your view_search_results tag should fire on the corresponding event, and so on. It’s possible that the dataLayer of your website doesn't respect the naming convention for the events. This is why it’s recommended to manually type the name of the event in the tag configuration.
Congratulations, you’ve set up the dynamic remarketing tags! The last step is to check if it actually works.
How to debug your setup?
First debug option : the GTM preview mode
The first thing you should do is to use the GTM preview mode to check if your remarketing tags are firing correctly, on every event that you want - so all the events included in your triggers.
Second debug option : the Tag Assistant
You can also use the tag assistant to test if your setup was done correctly. The Tag Assistant is a Google Chrome extension that helps to troubleshoot installation of various Google tags including Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager and more. You can install it on your browser through this link.
How to test your implementation with the Tag Assistant ?
- Record your session and navigate through the website.
- You should see in the results that the Google Ads remarketing tag has been detected
- If you click on it, you’ll see your conversion ID
- Under “remarketing validation”, you can put the ID of your GMC feed
- Then if you check the requests, you’ll see everything that the remarketing tag was able to collect.
What will be the impact on Google Ads?
After a few days, you’ll start collecting data in Google Ads. Go to tools and settings > audience manager > your data sources. Again, find your Google Ads Tag, and click on details.
There, you’ll be able to analyse all the events that have been collected, as well as their value. Normally, if everything is tracked correctly, it should look like in the image below. And if you click on the different parameters, you can identify if all the values that are coming in are correct.
Thank you for reading and good luck with the implementation!
Margaux Snakkers
| LinkedinThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
