Google Tag Manager Server Side Container manual deploy to Heroku

It is now possible to create a Google Tag Manager Server Side Container. The automatic deploy creates a robust Google Cloud Platform infrastructure that is scalable and fault-toleraent but is not cost-effective for small businesses and low-to-medium traffic sites. Using Google Cloud to host it is very expensive, approximately $120 USD/month.

Fortunately Google provided instructions for manual setup of the server side container and a docker image: gcr.io/cloud-tagging-10302018/gtm-cloud-image:stable.

I created this repository to help creating GTM server side containers using Heroku essentially for free*.

*the down-side of using Heroku's free tier is that after a period of inactivity your dyno/container will sleep. The next request will have to wait for the container startup and will take longer to complete.

Deploy to Heroku

Instructions

First create a Tag Manager server side container and selecet "Manual deploy" option to get your container key.

Deploy the preview server

Create one preview container using the "Deploy to Heroku" button above. Fill your CONTAINER_CONFIG key, set RUN_AS_PREVIEW_SERVER to false and leave PREVIEW_SERVER_URL empty.

After the deploy is complete copy the url of the preview server you just created.

To verify if the deploy was successful go to https://your-preview-server.herokuapp.com/healthz. The status should be "ok".

Deploy the server side container

Now create a new container using the "Deploy to Heroku" button above. Fill your CONTAINER_CONFIG key. Set RUN_AS_PREVIEW_SERVER to false and fill the PREVIEW_SERVER_URL with the url you just copied.

Verify it going to the url https://your-server.herokuapp.com/healthz. The status should be "ok".