How to set up the GTM template for B2B websites

What the template measures

The template adds contact tracking to Google Tag Manager for B2B websites without a shop: email and phone clicks, copied email addresses or phone numbers, and engaged time. Once you import it and enter your GA4 ID, more than 5 GA4 events work straight away. The remaining elements are paused, because they need your decision or an adjustment to your website.

The full email address or phone number never reaches GA4 or Google Ads. Details are in the “Privacy and consent” section.

Requirements before import

For basic tracking you only need a GTM container, a GA4 property and a consent banner with Consent Mode v2. The other requirements apply only to the elements you want to switch on.

Import into GTM step by step

Always import with the “Merge” option into a new workspace. The “Overwrite” option deletes everything in the workspace that is not in the file, which means your website’s existing tags.

1. In GTM, open Admin → Import Container.
2. Choose the file MILOWSKI.EU_B2B_GTM_TEMPLATE_v1.0_EN.json.
3. Choose a New workspace, for example “Import B2B template”. You will see the changes before publishing and can discard them in one click if needed.
4. Choose the Merge import option, then Rename conflicting tags, triggers and variables.
5. Confirm the import. All elements land in the MILOWSKI.EU B2B GTM TEMPLATE v1.0 folder.
6. Go to “Configuration after import”. Do not publish the container before running the tests from “Testing before you publish”.

Configuration after import

Two steps are enough for GA4 tracking alone: enter your GA4 ID and decide what to do with the main tag. You only set up the Google Ads elements and contact labels if you need them.

You will find the measurement ID in GA4 under Admin → Data streams → your stream. Do not enter the GA4 account ID, which consists of digits only, because the events will not reach anywhere.

Google Ads shows the conversion ID and label when you set up the conversion tag and choose Google Tag Manager. In AW-123456789/AbC-D_efG the ID is 123456789 and the label is AbC-D_efG.

In the contact label table, enter email addresses in lowercase ([email protected]) and phone numbers as digits only, including the country code and without + or spaces (442071234567). Polish numbers are the exception: enter them as 9 digits without 48 (600100200). Contacts that are not in the table are sent to GA4 masked.

GA4 events and parameters

Wherever possible, the template uses parameters that are built into GA4, so it does not use up your custom dimension quota. Only 2 parameters need registering: CONTACT_TYPE and lead_source. Do it in GA4 under Admin → Custom definitions → Create custom dimension, scope “Event”.

For email and phone clicks, link_text holds the label from the “LT – CONTACT_LABEL” table or a mask, not the link text from the page, because that text is often the address itself. For the same reason, the contact tags do not send link_url. CONTACT_TYPE is only sent with COPY_TEL_OR_MAIL, because for clicks the type is already in the event name. You can read the map provider for GO_TO_MAP from “Link domain”. Data appears in reports with a delay of up to 48 hours, and in DebugView immediately.

Mark CLICK_EMAIL, CLICK_TEL and COPY_TEL_OR_MAIL as key events, and generate_lead too once you switch forms on. MORE_THAN_1_MINUTE is meant for segments and audiences, so do not import it into Google Ads as a primary conversion.

Uppercase marks the events and parameters of this template, so you can tell them apart from the names in Google’s documentation. Google’s names, meaning generate_lead, link_url, link_text, form_id, form_name and lead_source, are lowercase. Register CONTACT_TYPE in uppercase, because GA4 is case-sensitive.

Google Ads conversions

Each conversion tag fires at most once per page view. Two clicks on the same email address therefore do not create two conversions, even if Google Ads is set to count “Every”.

• In Google Ads, create 3 Website conversion actions, one each for CLICK_EMAIL, CLICK_TEL and COPY_TEL_OR_MAIL.
• Set counting to “One” for each, meaning one conversion per ad click. That is the standard for leads.
• In B2B, an email or phone contact is a weaker signal than a submitted form or a sale from your CRM. Set these conversions as secondary if you have a better primary conversion. Make them primary only when they are your only signal.
• Do not count the same action from two sources. If you import GA4 key events with the same names into Google Ads and also enable the template’s tags, only one source can be the primary conversion. Otherwise every conversion is counted twice.
• Google Ads tags check the ad_storage consent from Consent Mode v2 on their own, so they need no extra consent settings in GTM.

Paused elements: forms and visit source for your CRM

Form tracking and passing the source to your CRM depend on the CMS and CRM of each website. That is why these elements are paused and will not work just by enabling them.

Forms: generate_lead

The “GA4 – generate_lead” tag fires on the formSubmitSuccess event in the dataLayer. The form has to push it after a successful submission, not when someone clicks “Send”, because then submissions with errors would count too.

• Contact Form 7 (WordPress): enable the “cHTML – listener Contact Form 7” tag together with the generate_lead tag. form_id is the CF7 form ID, form_name is its title.
• Other forms (Elementor, Gravity Forms, HubSpot, custom): a developer adds this code after a successful submission:

window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
window.dataLayer.push({ event: 'formSubmitSuccess', formId: 'contact', formName: 'Contact form', leadSource: 'website_form' });

• Exclude your recruitment form in the “formSubmitSuccess” trigger with a condition on the “DLV – formName” variable, for example does not contain “CV”, “Careers” or “Jobs”. Check your form names in GTM Preview. Without this, job applications inflate your lead count.

First and last visit source for your CRM

The “cHTML – first and last visit source to CRM” tag stores in the visitor’s browser where they came from and writes that data into hidden form fields. You then see the source of every lead in your CRM, and the gclid lets you import offline conversions into Google Ads, such as a signed contract.

The source is determined in this order: UTM parameters, gclid (google / cpc), msclkid (bing / cpc), fbclid (facebook / social), the referring site (search engines as organic, others as referral) and finally (direct) / (none). Navigation within your domain and its subdomains does not change the source. The data expires after 90 days, and you can change that period in the script (VALID_DAYS).

Before you enable it:

1. Add hidden fields to the form in your CMS, with the names or ids from the table. Names such as form_fields[GCLID] from Elementor work too.
2. Map those fields in your CRM.
3. The tag requires analytics_storage and ad_storage consent. Add a second trigger on the consent update event from your CMP. Without it, the source from the first page view is not saved for a visitor who only gives consent on that page.
4. Add to your privacy policy that the visit source is sent to your CRM together with the form.

Privacy and consent

GA4 and Google Ads only receive the contact label or its mask in the link_text parameter, plus the contact type for copies, never the full email address or phone number. Google Analytics policies forbid sending personal data to GA4, and named sales reps’ addresses are personal data.

• Emails are masked to the first 2 characters and the domain, for example in***(at)company.com. The value sent contains no @ sign.
• Phone numbers are masked to the last 3 digits, for example ***789.
• The full value exists only in the browser, in the “DLV – copiedText” and “JS – CONTACT_NORMALIZED” variables. Do not use these variables in any tag that sends data.

Without a consent banner with Consent Mode v2, Google tags send data without the user’s consent. For EU traffic that breaks the GDPR and the ePrivacy rules.

Settings outside GTM (in GA4)

Three things that are useful on B2B websites are set up in GA4, not in the container, so the template does not include them.

Testing before you publish

Before publishing, start GTM Preview, accept consent in the banner and tick off the scenarios below. Check the GA4 events in DebugView at the same time (GA4: Admin → DebugView).

When everything checks out, click Submit and publish a version, for example “MILOWSKI.EU B2B GTM TEMPLATE v1.0”.

Common problems

Container contents

The container holds 16 tags, 6 triggers and 10 variables, all in the MILOWSKI.EU B2B GTM TEMPLATE v1.0 folder. After import, 7 tags are active and 9 are paused.

Tags

Triggers

Variables

The template also enables these built-in variables: Click URL, Click Text, Event, Page URL, Page Hostname, Page Path and Referrer.

Limitations, version history and help

The template covers tracking that works the same way on every website. Anything that depends on your CMS, CRM or third-party tools needs adjusting.

• Copied phone numbers are recognised as Polish numbers (9 digits) or international numbers written with + or 00. A local number copied without a country code, such as 020 7123 4567, is not recognised.
• Forms other than Contact Form 7, chats and booking calendars are not tracked without adjustment.
• The time counter treats a visible tab as activity, even when the user does not move the mouse.
• Contact buttons that work through JavaScript rather than a mailto: or tel: link need their own trigger.
• GO_TO_MAP only tracks clicks on a link to a map. GTM cannot see clicks inside a map embedded on the page (iframe).

MILOWSKI.EU implements the template with form tracking adjusted to your site, visit source passed to your CRM and full testing, from €125 net. See the implementation scope.