Setting up Tag Manager

[mikepetersonwi]

Small agency setting up GTM for about 75 sites. Why not set up one Account & multiple Containers??​

My clients don't have direct access to their websites. I'm thinking it would be easier to set up one Account for my agency, and then set up a container for each of my clients. Tell me the reason(s) I shouldn't do it this way.

 

[Conor Treacy]

Small agency setting up GTM for about 75 sites. Why not set up one Account & multiple Containers??​

My clients don't have direct access to their websites. I'm thinking it would be easier to set up one Account for my agency, and then set up a container for each of my clients. Tell me the reason(s) I shouldn't do it this way.

The biggest reason is if there's a sale of one of the businesses or they want to bring in another consulting party. Being able to package everything and send it off is not possible with containers. While your clients may not have access to Analytics currently, the new owner of a company may want access or want to view website traffic.

Website traffic can, in some ways, be considered an asset of the company. You can command more money in a sale if you show proof of traffic (verifiable traffic).

Just like in web hosting, there are often designers that set up ONE hosting account and multiple "Add-On Domains," which then act as individual sites. They're all still ONE site, in the eyes of the host, and moving them into their own account after the fact is another time-consuming task (sometimes impossible, depending on database configurations).

Then you run into the risk of "one bad apple" situations. If everything is tied under one main GTM account, and something happens to it, then ALL your clients feel the ramifications. Maybe there's a phishing attempt, a suspension, or any other event - everything goes in one fell swoop.

Individual accounts are the way to go. I know it's more work, but you can automate parts so it won't take any longer than creating a container. Import/export recipes etc.

 

[mikepetersonwi]

Thank you Conor. All good points. Your advice is much appreciated.

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

We do exactly the same thing as @Conor Treacy. Our onboarding process regardless of whether it is a single service client (e.g. website only), or a full all-inclusive client (website, seo, photo/videos, social, etc) starts out with setting up an email group/distribution address on our domain that is something like "seo.clientname@ourdomain.com". We then set it up as a Google account and tie all related Google channels to that account. It may seem like more work, but we actually find it is less work down the road and offers much more flexibility for administrative purposes.

 

[recurpost]

What Jeff said is right in addition to what Conor said. I would like to add one thing. You can use an alias email so that all of your notifications will be sent to a single email address. That way you don't need to keep up with multiple inboxes. It works if you are the only one managing everyone. It won't work if you delegate responsibilities for different clients to different team members.