The reality is that you shouldn't have any exposed contacts for the electrical conductance of foil tape to matter. If the heat tape is leaking electricity it needs to either be repaired or replaced. In the case of this thread all that was necessary was to put a piece of electrical tape over the bus bars at the very end of the piece of heat tape.
Using duct tape or gorilla tape will work, but it will create a huge sticky mess if you ever need to pull it apart. the biggest advantage of foil tape is that the adhesive is designed with heat in mind and does't make a mess.
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