GTM4WP 2.1 beta 1 is ready for testing
GTM4WP 2.1 beta 1 for Google Tag Manager: Easy Digital Downloads tracking, server-side GA4 refunds and multilingual reporting, plus the release plan.
The first public beta of GTM4WP 2.1 is available for testing. It is published only on GitHub; wordpress.org keeps offering 2.0.3 as the stable version until the final release. 2.1 is a feature release, and this post gives only a short overview.
What is new
- Easy Digital Downloads integration: the full GA4 e-commerce event set, from view_item to purchase, for the classic EDD shortcodes and the EDD blocks, with the same options as the WooCommerce integration.
- Refunds sent to Google Analytics from the server: a refund issued in WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads is sent as a GA4 refund event through the Google Data Manager API, using a Google Cloud service account.
- Reporting in the default language: with WPML or Polylang, page data, products, downloads and Contact Form 7 form names can be reported in the default language of the site, so reports combine across translations.
- Site Health: Tools > Site Health now shows the configuration of the plugin and checks it for common problems.
- WordPress Abilities API: on WordPress 6.9 and newer, an AI assistant connected to your site via MCP can read the plugin configuration, help find out why tracking does not fire, and change a setting after you confirm it.
The Easy Digital Downloads tracking, the refund sending and the default language options are off by default and marked as beta or experimental in the settings screen.
Check your GTM setup before updating
A few data layer values change in 2.1. The page title, post terms, primary category name and site search term are now reported as plain text instead of HTML-encoded text, and several visitor variables are left out when they have no value instead of being sent empty. If a trigger or variable in your container matches the old form of one of these values, it needs to be adjusted. The release notes list every change of this kind.
Release plan
- October 5: beta 2
- October 12: beta 3 or the first release candidate
- October 19: release candidate, skipped if the previous build needs no bigger change
- October 26: final release on wordpress.org
These dates are a plan, not a promise, and they can move if something unforeseen comes up during testing. 2.1 is the last main release planned for 2026. After it, only bugfix releases are planned for the rest of the year.
How to test
Please test the beta on a staging site, not on a live store. Download duracelltomi-google-tag-manager-2.1.0-beta1.zip from the release page and upload it under Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin. WordPress offers to replace the installed version. The source code archives that GitHub generates are not installable.
Please report anything you find on GitHub with “2.1 beta” in the title. Feedback from sites running Easy Digital Downloads, WPML or Polylang is especially welcome.
