# Shopify setup, GTM tag or subscribing to Shopify events directly?

Asked by Marcus Webb on 2025-03-05. Tags: shopify, gtm, events, setup.

Setting up Croct for a Shopify client. I have both a GTM container and full access
to the theme code, so both documented setup paths are open to me: the Croct tag
via Google Tag Manager, or subscribing directly to Shopify events. What is the
actual trade-off between the two before I pick one and standardize on it for
future clients

## 2 answers

### Answer from Mel Torres (2025-03-05)

I have done both across a handful of stores, here is how I decide.

The GTM path wins on operational simplicity: no theme changes at all, one tag
that listens to the recommended events in the data layer and maps them to Croct
events. If the client already maintains a healthy GTM setup with standard
ecommerce events, you are done in an afternoon, and handing the setup over to a
marketing team later is painless. A nice detail on this path is that
conversion-indicating events like purchase are tracked as conversions too, so
goals work out of the box.

Subscribing directly to Shopify events is what I pick when the client's GTM
container is a graveyard of stale tags, or when there is no GTM at all. You skip
the data layer as a dependency, which means one less thing that can silently
break when someone edits the container.

For a standard playbook across clients I would default to GTM and fall back to
direct events for the messy containers.

### Answer from nick.h (2025-03-06)

Agree with the above, one extra angle: think about who owns the setup after you
leave. The GTM path lives where the client's marketing team already works, the
direct path lives in code they may never touch. For a freelancer handing off,
that difference matters more than the technical one. The event data ends up in
the same place either way, so pick based on maintenance, not capability.