“The tag's installed” is one of those claims that's true just often enough to be dangerous. A tag can be present but not firing, firing on the wrong pages, or loading twice. Here's how to actually confirm it — in a few minutes.
1. Use Google Tag Assistant
The fastest check. Open Tag Assistant, enter the site URL, and it shows which Google tags load and fire as you browse. Load your homepage and a conversion page and confirm the tag fires on both.
2. Check it's site-wide
- The Google tag should be in the
<head>of every page, not just the homepage. - Browse a few key pages (product, checkout, thank-you) and confirm it loads on each.
- A tag that only fires on the homepage will miss most conversions.
3. Watch for duplicates
A surprisingly common problem: the tag is installed twice — once directly and once through Google Tag Manager, or left over from an old setup. Duplicate tags can double-count pageviews and confuse conversion measurement. Tag Assistant will show if more than one instance loads.
4. Verify a real conversion
- Complete an actual conversion (form submit, purchase) on the site.
- Confirm the conversion event fires in Tag Assistant at that moment.
- Check it appears in Google Ads (allowing for reporting delay) and that the conversion action status reads as recording, not “unverified” or “inactive”.
5. Rule out consent blocking
If the tag is present but not firing, a cookie/consent banner may be blocking it until the user accepts. Test in an incognito window without interacting with the banner — see Consent Mode v2.
The problem with one-time checks
You can confirm the tag is perfect today and have it vanish next Tuesday when a developer ships an update — the classic post-deploy failure. A single check is a snapshot; tracking health is a moving target. That's why Taglertre-checks conversion tracking on every connected account every 30 minutes and alerts you when it stops firing — so “it was installed” stays true instead of becoming a past-tense excuse.
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