UberTags simplifies code tag management

UberTags is a new service that provides a suite of tools for third-party tag management. Third-party tags are the snippets of codes that you add to your site to include the functionality of a service you’re using — it can be web analytics, A/B testing, your ad network, or any number of other things. Most sites these days have a whole lot of them, and there are a range of problems with the way they’re managed.

Third-party tags can be a killer for page load times. Often when you’re visiting a site that seems to be loading quickly and then hits a snag unexpectedly, it’s thanks to a tag — the site may be held up loading data from the ad server, for instance. They are also notorious for building up over time like mould in the bottom of your fridge. New tags are often included in deployments, while old tags from an ancient conversion test are left in there, never to be removed.

UberTags is a tool that solves many of these problems. Billed as “one tag to rule them all,” you simply include the UberTag code in your site and manage all your tags from the service.

UberTag’s most important feature is that it ensures your tags load asynchronously, meaning that a tag never holds up the rest of the site from loading. Good developers make their original third-party tags asynchronous, but chances are you’re using at least one or two that aren’t, leading to increased load times.

Particularly useful for conversion and A/B testing tags, you can set an expiry date on any tag — it’ll automatically disappear whenever you want it to.

For larger products which stick to deployment cycles, you can avoid the frustration of delays in getting tags out there. If marketing wants that conversion tracker deployed now but the developer team isn’t willing to move up their deployment cycle, it’s no longer an issue.

For companies with deep pockets, it’s worth taking a look at UberTags. For the rest of us, unfortunately, UberTags probably isn’t an option. The cheapest plan, at $49.95 per month, only works for up to 15,000 pageviews — a pretty small number.