Google Tag Manager optimised tagging experience: what changes for Google Ads and GA4?

Less tagging overhead is welcome, but shared settings are the part of this GTM update I'd spend time reviewing. Google confirms that directly connected destinations no longer need the additional gtag.js load. That is a useful technical improvement. Google has not quantified a landing page speed or CVR gain from it, though, and neither belongs in a performance forecast just because the implementation is cleaner.

The appeal is having fewer separate places to maintain the same settings. Anyone who has inherited an account with years of tagging changes will understand that. But which settings are we choosing to keep? A difference between the Google Ads and GA4 setup might be accidental, or it might exist for a good reason. Destination tag parameters still allow individual overrides, so centralisation does not mean every destination must behave identically. Central settings also do not apply to destinations still loaded through an intermediary Google tag.

This is optional, so there is room to review those differences rather than rush the migration. I'd work through the optimisation flow, add the changes to the workspace and test in Preview mode before publishing. Existing event tags and triggers remain; this does not require rebuilding them. The access decision deserves separate attention, though. Connecting a destination and creating an External account link for shared access are not the same thing, and a container rollback will not undo permission changes. Agree any access changes with whoever owns those permissions rather than assuming the rollback covers everything.

For me, success here is a simpler setup that still measures the enquiries and sales we care about correctly. If reported CPA changes after migration, has campaign performance changed, or has the measurement changed? I'd compare the timing with results in analytics tools or advanced CRM reporting before changing bidding targets. A tidier container is useful. It should not become a reason to increase budgets on the strength of a reporting shift.