Google Analytics and Tag Manager

Nothing is tracked by default

A Firetend site runs no analytics and sets no cookies, so it needs no cookie banner. Visitor numbers without any of that are coming to each site's Insights page. If you already have Google Analytics, or an agency manages your tags in Google Tag Manager, you can keep them.

Connect your Google tag

Find your id. In Google Analytics it's under Admin → Data streams → your website: a measurement id like G-ABC123XYZ9. In Tag Manager it's at the top of your container: GTM-ABCD123.
In Firetend, open the site's Settings → Analytics, enter the id under Google tag and save.
Publish. The tag is part of the published site, so it starts counting when the change goes live. Previews and the editor never load it, so your own work doesn't show up as visits.

One tag per site. If you need more than Google Analytics (Ads conversions, a Meta pixel), use a Tag Manager container and add the rest there.

With Ask visitors first on (the default), the site shows a short banner at the bottom of the page in the visitor's language: "This site uses Google Analytics to count visits. Allow it?", with a link to your privacy page when the site has one, and Allow or No thanks. Nothing is sent to Google until a visitor allows it, and the choice is remembered in their browser, so they see the banner once.

Many visitors ignore the banner, so Google Analytics will report fewer visits than there are. You can turn Ask visitors first off, which loads the tag on every visit. Whether that's allowed depends on where your visitors are: the EU and the UK require consent before analytics cookies, and other places have their own rules. That decision, and what your privacy page says about it, is yours as the site's owner.

The design agent can restyle the banner to match the site ("make the consent banner match our footer"); its words stay as they are.

What changes on your site

Google's script adds about 100 KB of JavaScript and two more connections to every page, so pages are a little slower than a Firetend site without it.
Google sets its own cookies once a visitor allows it (or straight away, with the banner off). Your site's privacy page should say that the site uses Google Analytics; ask the content agent to add it.
Nothing else changes: forms, search, maps and the Inbox work as before.

Keeping your history on a redesign

If Firetend rebuilt your existing website, the design brief lists the Google tag your old site used under Facts to confirm. Keep the same id and your reports continue without a gap. Remember to point Google Analytics at your new site address if it changed.

Removing it

Clear the Google tag field in Settings → Analytics, save and publish. The site is cookie-free again from that moment; the banner no longer shows.