Do You Need Google Tag Manager with Google Analytics 4?

Switching to Google Analytics 4 can feel like you've been given a powerful new tool, but the instruction manual is missing a few pages. A common point of confusion is its relationship with Google Tag Manager (GTM). Do you really need to use GTM to make GA4 work? The simple answer is no, you don't. But the more complete answer is that you probably should. This article will clear up the confusion by explaining the difference between the two tools, showcasing when it makes sense to go without GTM, and detailing the powerful reasons why pairing it with GA4 is the best practice for most businesses.

What's the Difference Between GA4 and GTM?

Before deciding if you need both, it's important to understand what each tool actually does. They have very different jobs, even though they work together seamlessly.

Google Analytics 4: Your Data Warehouse

Think of GA4 as the destination. It's the platform that collects, stores, and organizes data about how users interact with your website or app. Its job is to provide you with reports and insights about your traffic, user behavior, conversions, and more. When you want to know how many people visited your blog last week or which traffic source brought you the most new customers, you go to GA4 to find the answers. GA4 is the hub where your data lives and where you analyze it.

Google Tag Manager (GTM): Your Data Delivery System

If GA4 is the warehouse, then Google Tag Manager is the highly efficient logistics and delivery service. GTM doesn't store or report on any data. Instead, its job is to manage and deploy all the little bits of code - called "tags" - on your website. This includes your main GA4 tracking tag, but also tags for platforms like Google Ads, Facebook, LinkedIn, Hotjar, and many others. Rather than hard-coding dozens of these snippets into your website's code, you place a single GTM snippet on your site. Then, you use GTM's user-friendly interface to add, remove, and manage all your other tags. It's a container that holds a bunch of small tracking tools so it's easier to use them all.

When You Don't Need Google Tag Manager

While using GTM with GA4 is highly recommended, it can be overkill in some very simple scenarios. You can skip GTM if your tracking needs are minimal and unlikely to grow.

1. You Only Need Basic Pageview Tracking

If your sole objective is to know how many people visit your website and look at different pages, a direct GA4 installation is enough. Placing the GA4 tracking code (gtag.js) directly on your site will capture all the pageview data you need without any extra complexity.

2. "Enhanced Measurement" Is All You Need

One of the best features of GA4 is that it automatically tracks certain user interactions right out of the box through a feature called “Enhanced Measurement.” With just the basic GA4 snippet installed, you automatically get data on:

• Scrolls (when a user scrolls 90% of the way down a page)
• Outbound clicks (clicks that lead away from your website)
• Site search (what users are searching for in your site's search bar)
• Video engagement (plays, progress, and completion of embedded YouTube videos)
• File downloads

If these automatic events provide all the behavioral data you care about, then you can stick with a simple GA4 setup.

3. You Have Almost No Other Marketing Tags

If the only tag you use on your site is for Google Analytics and you have no plans to add pixels for social media advertising, affiliate tracking, or other analytics tools, then the tag-management benefits of GTM are less relevant. The work of setting up GTM might outweigh the benefits if you truly only need to manage a single tag.

How to Install GA4 Without GTM

If your needs fall into the categories above, installing GA4 is straightforward:

1. In your GA4 property, navigate to Admin > Data Streams and select your website's data stream.
2. Under "View tag instructions," find the installation instructions for installing manually.
3. Copy the entire JavaScript snippet provided (it will start with <!-- Google tag (gtag.js) -->).
4. Paste this snippet into the <head> section of every page on your website. If you use a CMS like WordPress, you can often paste it into a single spot in your theme’s header file or a designated section in your theme settings.

Once that's done, data will start flowing directly into GA4.

The Powerful Advantages of Using GTM with GA4

For nearly everyone else - from small businesses to large enterprises - using GTM is the smarter, more scalable, and more powerful way to implement GA4. It requires a bit more setup initially but saves you countless hours and headaches down the road.

1. Centralized Management for All Your Tags

As soon as you decide to run a Facebook ad, try a heatmapping tool like Hotjar, or test out a new analytics platform, you'll need to add another JavaScript snippet to your site. Without GTM, this means asking a developer to edit the site's code for every single addition or change. This process can be slow and puts a barrier between your marketing team and the tools they need.

With GTM, you are in complete control. All of your marketing and analytics tags live in one dashboard. You can add, pause, or remove them yourself in a matter of minutes without ever touching the website's source code. This makes your marketing efforts much more agile.

2. Advanced Custom Event Tracking Made Easy

This is arguably the most compelling reason to use GTM. While GA4's enhanced measurement is useful, real insights often come from tracking interactions that are unique to your business goals. These are called custom events.

What if you want to know how many people click your "Request a Demo" button? Or how many users submit your newsletter signup form? Or when someone interacts with a specific product feature? GTM makes tracking these custom interactions remarkably simple without needing to write any custom code.

Example: Tracking a Call-to-Action Button Click

Let's say you want to track a "View Pricing" button click in GA4. Here’s how you'd do it in GTM:

1. Create a Trigger: A trigger is the rule that tells GTM when to do something. In GTM, you would create a click trigger that fires only when a user clicks on an element where the Click Text is "View Pricing."
2. Create a Tag: A tag is the action telling GTM what to do. You’d create a "Google Analytics: GA4 Event" tag. You’d configure it with a custom event name, like view_pricing_click.
3. Connect Them: You attach the trigger you created in step 1 to the tag you created in step 2.
4. Preview and Publish: Use GTM's Preview mode to test that the tag fires correctly when you click the button. Once confirmed, you hit Publish.

Now, every time a user clicks that button, the view_pricing_click event is sent to GA4, which you can then mark as a conversion, analyze in reports, and use to better understand user intent.

3. Simplified Consent Management

With privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA, managing user consent for cookies and tracking is crucial. GTM integrates directly with popular Consent Management Platforms (CMPs) through a feature called Consent Mode. By setting it up, you can configure your tags to fire - or not fire - based on the choices a user makes in your cookie banner. For instance, you can tell GTM to only fire marketing tags (like the Meta Pixel) if the user has consented to “marketing cookies.” This automates compliance and puts all your consent logic in one place, making it far easier than trying to manage it individually in your website's code.

4. Robust Debugging and Version Control

Mistakes happen. A misconfigured tag could stop collecting data or, in a worst-case scenario, break part of your website's functionality.

GTM comes with two invaluable safety features:

• Preview & Debug Mode: Before you publish any changes, you can enter a live preview of your site. GTM shows you exactly which tags are firing on each page load and interaction, what data is being passed, and what's being blocked. It's an incredibly powerful tool for troubleshooting issues before your users ever see them.
• Version Control: Every time you publish your container, GTM saves a new version. If you later realize that a change you made caused a problem, you can instantly revert to a previously published, stable version with a single click. This acts as a safety net that simply doesn't exist when you hard-code tags into your website.

Final Thoughts

To recap, you are not technically required to use Google Tag Manager to get Google Analytics 4 running. A direct installation works perfectly fine for basic pageview tracking and the automatic "Enhanced Measurement" events. However, the moment your tracking needs evolve - whether through custom events, additional marketing tools, consent management, or simply the need for better control - GTM becomes an essential partner. Investing the extra hour to set it up will give you agility, power, and a scalable foundation for all your future measurement needs.

Once you've mastered your data collection with GA4 and GTM, the next challenge is turning that mountain of data into actionable insights without spending all day building reports. We built Graphed to solve exactly this problem. By securely connecting data sources like Google Analytics, you can use simple, natural language to create real-time dashboards and get answers to your questions instantly. Instead of fighting with reporting interfaces, you can just ask, "Show me traffic sources for new users over the last 30 days," and get a live, shareable dashboard in seconds, letting you focus on strategy, not spreadsheets.