If you need full control over your tracking setup, you can replace Understory's default Google Tag Manager (GTM) container with your own. This lets you configure exactly which tags fire on your storefront — including Google Analytics 4, Google Ads, Meta Pixel, and any other tags you need.

This is an advanced option. When you enable your own GTM container, Understory's built-in tracking integrations for GA4, Google Ads, and Meta Pixel are disabled. You take over responsibility for configuring those tags yourself inside your GTM container.

How to Enable Your Own GTM Container

Requirements: Admin access and an existing Google Tag Manager account.

Go to Growth > Tracking — in the left-hand menu of your Backoffice
Find the Google Tag Manager section — it's listed alongside GA4, Google Ads, and Meta Pixel
Enter your Container ID — in the format GTM-XXXXXXX (find this in your GTM account under Admin > Container Settings)
Toggle the switch to Active — and click Save

Once saved, your GTM container loads on your storefront instead of Understory's default container.

What Changes When You Use Your Own Container

Replaced:

Understory's default GTM container is fully replaced by yours — only one container loads at a time
The individual GA4, Google Ads, and Meta Pixel integrations in the Tracking page are disabled automatically. You cannot enable them alongside your own GTM container

Still works:

Your storefront continues to push all tracking events to the dataLayer — your GTM container picks these up automatically
UTM campaign parameters are still captured and preserved
Understory's internal analytics (used for your dashboard metrics) continue to work independently

You are now responsible for:

Creating and configuring all tags in your GTM container (GA4, Google Ads, Meta Pixel, etc.)
Setting up cookie consent mode
Configuring conversion tracking
Testing that your tags fire correctly

Quick Start with GTM Templates

We provide importable GTM container templates with pre-configured tags, triggers, and variables. Choose the template that matches your setup:

Download Storefront template — for customers who use their own GTM container on the Understory storefront
Download Widget template — for customers who embed the Understory booking or gift card widget on their own website and want to track widget interactions

You can import both if you use the storefront and widgets together — the shared variables and Google Tag configuration have the same names, so GTM merges them automatically.

What's included

Each template imports an Understory folder into your GTM container. Everything is prefixed with "Understory - " so you can easily identify imported items alongside your own tags.

Storefront template:

Type	What's included
Tags	Google Tag (GA4 config), GA4 Event tags for `select_item`, `view_item`, `add_to_cart`, `view_cart`, `begin_checkout`, `purchase`, Conversion Linker
Triggers	Custom event triggers for all storefront events including `on_receipt` and `private_request_submitted`
Variables	Data Layer variables for ecommerce data, receipt payload, and a placeholder GA4 Measurement ID

Widget template:

Type	What's included
Tags	Google Tag (GA4 config), GA4 Event tags for `view_item`, `add_to_cart`, `begin_checkout`, Conversion Linker
Triggers	Custom event triggers for `understory_view_item`, `understory_add_to_cart`, `understory_begin_checkout`
Variables	Data Layer variables for ecommerce data and a placeholder GA4 Measurement ID

How to import

Download the template — use the links above to save the JSON file to your computer
Open your GTM container — go to Admin > Import Container
Choose the file — select the downloaded JSON file
Select "Merge" — choose "Rename conflicting tags, triggers, and variables" to safely add the Understory items alongside your existing setup
Review and confirm — GTM shows a summary of what will be added

After importing

Open the variable "Understory - GA4 Measurement ID" — replace G-XXXXXXXXXX with your actual GA4 Measurement ID
Preview and test — use GTM's Preview mode to verify events fire correctly
Publish — when everything looks good, publish your container

Storefront DataLayer Events

Your storefront pushes the following events to the dataLayer. These follow the standard GA4 ecommerce schema.

Page Views

page_view — Fires on every page navigation.

Browsing Events

select_item — A visitor clicks on an experience in your storefront listing.

Property	Example Value
item_list_id	`companyProfile`
item_list_name	`Company Profile`
items[].item_id	Experience ID
items[].item_name	Experience name
items[].affiliation	`Understory`
items[].item_category	`experience`

view_item — A visitor opens an experience detail page.

Property	Example Value
currency	`EUR`
value	Total price
items[].item_id	Experience ID
items[].item_name	Experience name
items[].affiliation	`Understory`
items[].item_category	`experience`

Booking Flow Events

add_to_cart — A visitor selects guests and proceeds in the booking flow.

Property	Example Value
currency	`EUR`
totalPrice	Total price
items[].item_id	Experience ID
items[].item_name	Experience or variant name
items[].affiliation	`Understory`
items[].item_category	`experience`, `addon`, or `voucher`
items[].item_variant	Variant ID
items[].price	Unit price
items[].quantity	Number of guests

view_cart — The cart page is viewed.

Property	Example Value
currency	`EUR`
value	Cart total
items[]	Same structure as `add_to_cart`

begin_checkout — A visitor starts the payment process.

Property	Example Value
currency	`EUR`
value	Checkout total
items[].item_id	Experience or variant ID
items[].item_name	Experience name (or `Voucher` for gift cards)
items[].affiliation	`Understory`
items[].item_category	`variant/experience`, `addon`, or `voucher`
items[].price	Unit price
items[].quantity	Number of guests

Purchase Event

on_receipt — A purchase is completed. This is the most important event for conversion tracking.

Important: This event is named on_receipt, not the standard GA4 purchase. The GTM template handles this mapping for you — the included "Understory - GA4 Event - purchase" tag listens for on_receipt and sends it to GA4 as a purchase event. If you're setting this up manually, create a custom event trigger for on_receipt.

Property	Example Value
transaction_id	Unique receipt ID (use this for conversion deduplication)
payload.receiptId	Receipt ID
payload.currency	`EUR`
payload.value	Order total (excluding gift card payments)
payload.items[].item_id	Variant ID (or voucher ID for gift cards)
payload.items[].item_name	Item name
payload.items[].affiliation	`Understory`
payload.items[].item_category	`variant/experience` or `voucher`
payload.items[].item_category_2	Item name
payload.items[].item_category_3	Experience ID
payload.items[].price	Unit price (VAT inclusive)
payload.items[].quantity	Quantity
payload.items[].currency	`EUR`
payload.items[].vat_rate	VAT rate (e.g. `0.25`)
payload.items[].vat_amount	VAT amount

Other Events

private_request_submitted — A visitor submits a private event request form.

Property	Example Value
formattedDate	Requested date
participants	Number of participants

Embedded Widget DataLayer Events

If you use the Understory booking or gift card widget on your own website, the widgets also push ecommerce events to the dataLayer. These events are prefixed with understory_ to avoid interfering with any existing tracking you have on your site.

The widget events use the same item data structure as the storefront events (currency, value, items with item_id, item_name, affiliation, etc.), so you can process them in the same way.

Important: The widgets do not load GTM — they only push events to the dataLayer. If you have GTM installed on your website, these events are picked up automatically. If you don't have GTM, the events are safely ignored.

Booking Widget Events

understory_view_item — The widget loads and displays an experience.

Property	Example Value
currency	`EUR`
value	`0`
items[].item_id	Experience ID
items[].item_name	Experience name
items[].affiliation	`Understory`
items[].item_category	`experience`

understory_add_to_cart — A visitor selects guests and proceeds to the confirmation step.

Property	Example Value
currency	`EUR`
value	Total price
items[].item_id	Experience ID
items[].item_name	Experience and variant name
items[].affiliation	`Understory`
items[].item_category	`experience` or `addon`
items[].item_variant	Variant ID
items[].price	Unit price
items[].quantity	Number of guests

understory_begin_checkout — A visitor confirms their booking and proceeds to payment.

Property	Example Value
currency	`EUR`
value	Checkout total
items[].item_id	Experience ID
items[].item_name	Experience and variant name
items[].affiliation	`Understory`
items[].item_category	`experience` or `addon`
items[].item_variant	Variant ID
items[].price	Unit price
items[].quantity	Number of guests

Gift Card Widget Events

understory_view_item — The gift card widget loads.

Property	Example Value
currency	`EUR`
value	`0`
items[].item_id	`gift-card` (or experience ID for experience gift cards)
items[].item_name	`Gift Card` (or experience name)
items[].affiliation	`Understory`
items[].item_category	`voucher`

understory_begin_checkout — A visitor proceeds to payment for a gift card.

Property	Example Value
currency	`EUR`
value	Gift card amount
items[].item_id	`gift-card` (or experience ID)
items[].item_name	`Gift Card` (or experience name)
items[].affiliation	`Understory`
items[].item_category	`voucher`
items[].price	Gift card amount
items[].quantity	`1`

Using widget events in GTM

The understory_ prefix means these events won't accidentally trigger tags you've set up for other products on your site. The widget GTM template includes triggers that listen for the prefixed event names and forward them to GA4 as standard ecommerce events (view_item, add_to_cart, begin_checkout).

DataLayer Variables

These variables are pushed to the dataLayer before your GTM container loads on the storefront, so they're available to all your tags:

Variable	Description
`company_id`	Your Understory company ID
`measurement_id`	Your GA4 Measurement ID (if configured)
`conversionLinkerDomains`	Domains for cross-domain tracking (includes your storefront domain automatically)

Tips for Setting Up Conversion Tracking

Google Ads Conversions

Create a Google Ads Conversion Tracking tag in your GTM container
Set the trigger to fire on the on_receipt event
Use the transaction_id property as the Order ID — this prevents duplicate conversions from being counted
Map payload.value to the conversion value and payload.currency to the currency

Google Analytics 4

If you're using the Understory GTM templates, GA4 is already configured — just replace the Measurement ID placeholder. If you're setting up manually:

Create a Google Tag using your Measurement ID
Add GA4 Event tags for each ecommerce event you want to track
Create Data Layer variables to extract the event properties (currency, value, items) and map them as event parameters

Meta Pixel

Add the Meta Pixel base tag to your container
Map the storefront events to Meta standard events — for example, on_receipt → Purchase, begin_checkout → InitiateCheckout, view_item → ViewContent

Cookie Consent

When you use your own GTM container, you manage consent mode. The storefront reads consent status from the dataLayer, so if you implement Google Consent Mode v2 in your container, it will be respected across all tracking.

Did this answer your question? If not, please reach out to us in the chat window at the bottom to the right, and we'll be happy to help 🤗

Using Your Own Google Tag Manager Container