Before a marketer can implement sitewide tagging, what's the first thing they should do?

The Google Click Identifier (GCLID) is crucial for connecting Google Ads clicks to website conversions. If a marketer uses click trackers in the URL, these trackers can sometimes interfere with or strip the GCLID parameter, preventing proper attribution. Therefore, before implementing sitewide tagging, it's essential to verify that the GCLID is still being passed correctly through any existing click trackers to ensure accurate measurement. Using just the image portion of JavaScript is not a standard or recommended practice for sitewide tagging and would likely lead to incomplete data. Turning off auto-tagging would prevent the GCLID from being appended to URLs, which is necessary for Google Ads to track conversions effectively. Loading a tag within another tracking tag like Floodlight is not a prerequisite for implementing sitewide tagging; rather, it's about ensuring the core tracking mechanism (GCLID) functions independently.