GTM4WP – A Google Tag Manager (GTM) plugin for WordPress vs Smush – Image Optimization, Compression, Lazy Load, WebP & CDN

Google Tag Manager (GTM) is Google’s free tool for everyone to manage and deploy analytics and marketing tags as well as other code snippets using an intuitive web UI. To learn more about this tool, visit the official website. This plugin places the GTM container code snippets onto your WordPress website so that you do not need to add it manually. Multiple containers are also supported! The plugin complements your GTM setup by pushing page meta data and user information into the so called data layer. Google’s official help pages includes more details about the data layer. PHP 7.4 is required to use this plugin. GTM container code placement The original GTM container code is divided into two parts: The first part is a javascript code snippet that is added to the section of every page of the website. This part is critical to enable all features of GTM, and this plugin helps to place this part correctly on your site. The second part is an iframe snippet that acts as a failsafe/fallback should users’ JavaScript be disabled. Google recommends – for best performance – to place this code snippet directly after the opening tag on each page. Albeit not ideal, it will work when placed lower in the code. This plugin provides a code placement option for the second code snippet. If your WordPress theme is compatible with the additions of WordPress 5.2 then this plugin will place this second code to the right place. Users of the Genisis theme, GeneratePress theme, Elementor, Oxygen Builder and Beaver Builder Theme will also have this placed correctly. To utilize this, set the compatibility mode in plugin options to off. All other users can place this second code snippet using a custom PHP code (“Manually coded” option) or select the so called “Footer” option to add the code lower in the code (it is not the recommended way but will work) Basic data included post/page titles post/page dates post/page category names post/page tag names post/page author ID and name post/page ID post types post format post count on the current page + in the current category/tag/taxonomy custom terms associated with any post type logged in status logged in user role logged in user ID (to track cross device behaviour in Google Analytics) logged in user email address (both unhashed and SHA256 hased values to be used with tracking) logger in user creation date site search data site name and id (for WordPress multisite instances) IP address of the visitor (please use the explicit consent of the visitor to utilize this) Browser / OS / Device data browser data (name, version, engine) OS data (name, version) device data (type, manufacturer, model) Data is provided using the WhichBrowser library: http://whichbrowser.net/ Weather data (beta) Push data about users’ current weather conditions into the dataLayer. This can be used to generate weather-related audience/remarketing lists on ad platforms and allows for user segmentation in your web analytics solutions: weather category (clouds, rain, snow, etc.) weather description: more detailed data temperature in Celsius or Fahrenheit air pressure wind speed and degrees Weather data is queried from Open Weather Map. Depending on your websites traffic, additional fees may apply: http://openweathermap.org/price An (free) API key from OpenWeatherMap is required for this feature to work. ipstack.com is used to determine the site visitor’s location. A (free) API key from IPStack.com is required for this feature to work: https://ipstack.com/product Media player events (experimental) Track users’ interaction with any embedded media: YouTube Vimeo Soundcloud DataLayer events can be chosen to fire upon media player load, media is being played, paused/stopped and optionally when the user reaches 10, 20, 30, …, 90, 100% of the media duration. Tracking is supported for embedded media using the built-in oEmbed feature of WordPress as well as most other media plugins and copy/pasted codes. Players injected into the website after page load are not currently supported. Scroll tracking Fire tags based on how the visitor scrolls from the top to the bottom of a page. An example would be to separate “readers” (who spend a specified amount of time on a page) from “scrollers” (who only scroll through within seconds). You can use these events to fire Analytics tags and/or remarketing/conversion tags (for micro conversions). Scroll tracking is based on the solution originally created by Nick Mihailovski Thomas Baekdal Avinash Kaushik Joost de Valk Eivind Savio Justin Cutroni Original script: http://cutroni.com/blog/2012/02/21/advanced-content-tracking-with-google-analytics-part-1/ Blacklist & Whitelist Tag Manager tags, triggers and variables To increase website security, you have the option to white- and blacklist tags/triggers/variables. You can prevent specific tags from firing or the use of certain variable types regardless of your GTM setup. If the Google account associated with your GTM account is being hacked, an attacker could easily execute malware on your website without accessing its code on your hosting server. By blacklisting custom HTML tags and/or custom JavaScript variables you can secure the Tag Manager container. Integration Google Tag Manager for WordPress integrates with several popular plugins. More integration to come! Contact Form 7: fire an event when a Contact Form 7 form was submitted with any result (mail sent, mail failed, spam detected, invalid input) WooCommerce: Implementation of GA4 E-commerce Does not support promotions since WooCommerce does not have such a feature (yet) Does not support refunds Compatibility with High Performance Order Storage (HPOS) AMP: load your AMP container on the AMP version of your pages Cookiebot: use automatic cookie blocking mode if needed Google Consent Mode v2: fire the “default” command with specific consent flags to integrat with non-certified Consent Management Platforms (CMPs) and plugins. Server side containers If you are using a server side container you can enter your custom domain name and custom path to load gtm.js from your there. Exclude specific user roles from being tracked You can set which user roles needs to be excluded from tracking when a user with that role visits the frontend. This will completely disable the container code for that user.

Compress images, optimize images, and enable image lazy load automatically with the powerful Smush image optimizer to keep your WordPress site fast, without losing quality. Smush makes it easy to optimize images, compress images, and deliver images faster across your entire WordPress site. This all-in-one image optimizer automatically reduces image file sizes, enables image lazy load, and serves modern formats like WebP and AVIF, all without breaking image quality or adding extra work. Whether you’re running a blog, store, or portfolio, Smush helps you optimize images at scale and keep your site fast with a trusted WordPress image optimizer. Trusted by 1+ Million Sites | 4.8/5 Star Rating Get everything you need to optimize images and speed up your site. Smush works out of the box with no complicated setup – just install and let it handle the rest. Compress images without losing quality Reduce image file size automatically while keeping your images sharp and clear. Smush is an easy-to-use image optimizer which let’s you compress images using both lossless and lossy compression, giving you the best balance of quality and performance without extra work. You can also compress images outside the media library using Directory Smush, making it easy to optimize images stored in theme folders, plugins, or other directories on your server. Lazy load images for faster pages Enable image lazy load across your site so images load only when needed. This image optimizer improves initial page speed and creates a smoother experience for visitors without extra configuration. Serve WebP and AVIF images automatically (PRO) Convert images to WebP and AVIF and serve them automatically to supported browsers. Smush helps you optimize images using next-gen formats to reduce file size and improve load times across your WordPress site. Deliver images faster with an Image CDN (PRO) Serve images through a global image CDN to reduce latency and improve load times for visitors around the world. 119 global CDN servers Up to 500 GB of bandwidth Faster image delivery based on visitor location Improved performance for image-heavy and high-traffic sites Automatically resize and fix image dimensions (PRO) Eliminate common PageSpeed warnings and improve layout stability with automatic image sizing. Smush dynamically resizes images to perfectly fit their containers, regardless of original size, helping fix the “Properly size images” warning in Google PageSpeed Insights. It also automatically adds missing width and height attributes to your images, improving rendering speed and reducing layout shifts. This helps you meet the “Ensure images have explicit width and height” recommendation without any manual work. Optimize your entire site, automatically Smush works across your whole site as a powerful image optimizer to optimize images as you upload them and maintain performance over time without manual work. Optimize images automatically on upload Compress images in bulk or individually Works with your existing media library No need to re-upload images Enable image lazy load across your site Convert images to WebP and AVIF Deliver images with an integrated image CDN Automatically resize and serve correctly sized images Optimize images outside the media library with Directory Smush Built for performance Smush improves page speed and overall performance by reducing image weight and improving how images are delivered. Reduce page load times Improve user experience Better performance for image-heavy pages Supports image lazy load and preload images (PRO) for faster perceived performance Works with your existing setup Smush is built to work with your current WordPress setup, including popular themes, page builders, and plugins. Compatible with Gutenberg, Elementor, WPBakery, and more Works with WooCommerce stores No need to change your workflow Easy to enable and configure Designed to be simple You don’t need to be a performance expert to optimize images with Smush image optimizer. Works out of the box Simple settings when you need them No technical knowledge required Safe to use on any site Why choose Smush? There are plenty of image optimization plugins, but Smush focuses on making it easy to optimize images, compress images, and improve performance without complexity. As a leading WordPress image optimizer, Smush gives you powerful optimization tools without the technical hassle. Trusted by over 1 million WordPress users Built specifically for WordPress Regular updates and improvements Backed by the WPMU DEV team Get started in minutes Install Smush, activate it, and start to compress images, optimize images, and enable image lazy load right away. This easy-to-use image optimizer helps most sites see improvements immediately without changing how they upload or manage images. About Us WPMU DEV is a premium supplier of quality WordPress plugins, services and support. Learn more here: https://wpmudev.com/ Don’t forget to stay up to date on everything WordPress from the Internet’s number one resource: WPMU DEV Blog Hey, one more thing… we hope you enjoy our free offerings as much as we’ve loved making them for you! Contact and Credits Originally written by Alex Dunae at Dialect (dialect.ca, e-mail ‘alex’ at ‘dialect dot ca’), 2008-11.