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You’ve probably heard developers talk about “CI/CD pipelines” or “automated deployments” and wondered what that actually means for your website. Maybe you’ve been in meetings where technical terms get thrown around, and you nod along but aren’t quite sure how it all connects to what you care about: getting content live quickly, keeping the site fast, and avoiding broken pages.

Here’s the truth: CI/CD isn’t just developer jargon—it’s the automation system that makes your website faster, more reliable, and safer to update. And understanding the basics can help you make better decisions about your digital infrastructure.

If you’ve been building front-end applications for the past decade, Webpack has probably been a constant companion—sometimes helpful, often frustrating, occasionally infuriating. Those 30-second (or 3-minute) build times. That sprawling configuration file that no one fully understands. The mysterious “Module not found” errors that appear only in production.

Then you hear about Vite. Cold server starts in milliseconds. Hot module replacement that actually feels instant. Configuration so simple you wonder if you’re missing something.

At DrupalCon Atlanta 2025, I had the privilege of presenting “Tag! You’re It. Digital ‘freeze’ tag with GTM” - a session exploring how to master Google Tag Manager while balancing the competing demands of privacy compliance and website performance.

The Modern Tag Management Challenge

For marketers and developers alike, Google Tag Manager (GTM) has become an indispensable tool. It simplifies the deployment and management of various tags across your website - analytics tags, marketing pixels, tracking scripts, and more - all without requiring coding skills for each change.

Your website looks great. It tells your story, showcases your work, and presents your services beautifully. There’s just one problem: it’s not generating leads at the rate your business needs to grow.

Many businesses treat their website as a digital brochure—a place to park information that might be helpful if someone already knows about you. But in reality, your website should be your hardest-working salesperson: qualifying leads 24/7, nurturing prospects automatically, and feeding your sales team a steady stream of qualified opportunities.

When your business is growing and your website is struggling to keep up, you face a critical decision: redesign what you have or rebuild from the ground up? This choice can mean the difference between a smart investment that accelerates growth and an expensive mistake that holds you back.

For growth-stage businesses, this decision becomes even more crucial. You need a platform that can scale with your ambitions, support evolving marketing strategies, and integrate with your expanding tech stack—all without draining resources or disrupting operations.

At the 2024 Pacific Northwest Drupal Summit, MindSing sponsored a session exploring the critical relationship between Core Web Vitals, Google Tag Manager, and site performance. The session, “Speedy Delivery, Win the GTM, SERP, and CWV Game with Layout Builder and Tailwind,” demonstrated how to maintain perfect performance scores while meeting the demands of modern marketing teams.

The Performance Paradox

You’ve optimized your Drupal site. Your code is clean, your images are compressed, your CSS is minimal. You run a Lighthouse audit and… 85. Not bad, but not the perfect 100 you were aiming for. What’s holding you back? Often, it’s not your code—it’s Google Tag Manager.