Google Tag Manager

This document walks through Mixpanel’s native integration with Google Tag Manager. The source code lives here.

Installation

Note: You can also watch our video walkthrough here.

The easiest way to install the custom template is to locate it in the Google Tag Manager community template gallery, and you can install it via the Google Tag Manager user interface.

To manually install the template, e.g. for debugging prior to the changes being published in the community template gallery, follow these steps.

1. Download the ./src/template.tpl file locally.
2. Open a Google Tag Manager Web container via the Google Tag Manager user interface. Preferably one that is already deployed on a website where you can test the template with real use cases.
3. In the GTM UI, browse to Templates, and in the box titled Tag Templates, click the blue New button.
4. Once the Template Editor is open, click the menu (three vertical dots) in the top-right corner of the window and choose Import.
5. Select the template.tpl file you downloaded locally.
6. Follow the prompts. Once import is complete, the Template Editor should show the Mixpanel template in edit mode.
7. Click Save to save the template, and then proceed to close the Template Editor.
8. In the GTM UI, browse to Tags and click New to create a new tag.
9. From the list of available tag templates, choose the Mixpanel template you just imported to the container.

How It Works

The template brings the functionality of the Mixpanel JS SDK to Google Tag Manager so that you can implement Mixpanel through the Tag Manager interface instead of a direct implementation in code. You will need to define and fire tags using this template to make Mixpanel SDK calls to track events and identify users.

It utilizes a custom created JavaScript wrapper to overcome the restrictions GTM’s templating system places on available JavaScript APIs.

Initialization

When any Mixpanel GTM tag fires, it automatically tries to initialize a new instance using the Initialization Options configured in the tag. If an instance with the given name has already been initialized on the page, the initialization process is skipped.

This way the user doesn’t need to worry about initialization. They just need to make sure that the Initialization Options are configured consistently across the tags.

Sending Mixpanel Commands

After adding the Project Token to its respective field, you need to choose what type of tag to use. Each type corresponds with some command you can use with the Mixpanel JS API.

Note that 'init', 'push' and any of the “getter” commands are not supported in the template.

The more complex tag types (group, people, and track) are elevated to the top of the drop-down menu with the - prefix to separate them from the other commands.

Once you select a tag type, additional options may appear. Consult the SDK reference for details on how to configure these options.

Firing The Tag

Once you’re happy with your tag, you need to add a Trigger to it. For example, to trigger it with every page load, add the All Pages trigger to it.

Save the tag when done.

Testing

You can then enter Preview mode by clicking the blue Preview button in the Google Tag Manager UI. This opens a new tab with your website running the GTM container, and you can proceed to test the Mixpanel tag as if the container were published. In the Tag Assistant Preview tab, you can see additional information about the trigger events, tags, and variables that fire while you are browsing the page in Preview mode.