Server-side tagging is becoming more popular mainly because it is designed to improve conversion tracking accuracy while maintaining privacy regulation. More platforms started supporting server-side tracking, including Google Analytics, Google Ads, Floodligh, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Bing, etc. Server-side tagging can also send data to email and SMS platforms like Klaviyo or Active Campaign.
If you have doubts about when or if you should start implementing server-side tagging, this blog post is for you. We will discuss its benefits here.
After implementing server-side tracking, our clients see an immediate increase in their PPC campaign results. According to Google’s research, Square has seen a 46% increase in reported conversions from Google Ads after implementing server-side tracking. Meta reports offer 13% cost per result and 19% additional attributed purchase events for advertisers who implemented CAPI vs. those using Facebook pixel only.
Adblockers, tracking restrictions like ITP, iOS 14 and higher, and broken Javascript all affect the accuracy of the data you collect about website visitors. These are the main reasons why Facebook, Google, and other platforms highly recommend that users start implementing server-side tracking.
You most likely see the different numbers of purchases in your CRM compared to GA. For some of our clients, Google Analytics was underreporting 25% of purchases compared to the CRM data. After setting up server-side tracking, this discrepancy decreased to 3%.
Server-side tagging can help reduce data loss due to ITP and iOS restrictions and may also decrease the impact of AdBlockers. It all happens for two reasons: using a custom domain for server-side tagging that sets first-party cookies and Stape custom loader that helps to make Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics resistant to ad blockers.
It is crucial to understand the difference between tracking restrictions and user consent. You should respect the user’s decision to opt out of tracking and not fire any tracking scripts or set cookies if users do not give their permission.
We have a blog post describing how to use consent status in the server Google Tag Manager.
When setting up a server container in Google Tag Manager, it is highly recommended to use a custom subdomain. With the help of a custom subdomain, you can set first-party cookies.
Third-party cookies deprecation affects all popular browsers, Chrome, Safari, Firefox, etc. For example, when using web tracking for Google Analytics, GA sets cookies from the domain https://www.google-analytics.com. In this case, cookies live for 1 or 7 days. If you’ve set up server-side GA and used a custom domain for your server GTM, cookies will live for 400 days.
⚠️UPDATE: Google announced that it will no longer pursue its plans to phase out third-party cookies. Instead, the company will introduce a new solution: a one-time prompt that allows users to set their preferences, which will apply across all Google browsing experiences.
When implementing web tracking pixels, you can't control what data they scrape from your site. For example, they can collect the user's first and last name without notifying you.
On the other hand, server-side tagging helps you control what data each vendor receives. They can access only the information you configured in the request. If you do not send user data in the request, you can be 100% sure they cannot access personal user data.
One of our clients decided to set up server-side tracking for affiliate platforms only because he wanted to limit the conversion data affiliate networks receive. We decided to trigger affiliate conversion tags only when the closing channel in the user’s conversion path is an affiliate network.
This benefit has something in common with the data control one. Due to regulations like GDPR, CCPA, or CSP, you should strictly control when you collect information about your site visitors and to whom you share it. It is forbidden to send any PII (personally identifiable information) to third-party vendors.
Since server tracking ultimately allows you to control data flow, each vendor receives only information configured in your server-side tags.
There are several ways how AdBlocker can stop tracking scripts. Server-side tracking can help with one of these methods - when adblocker detects a script identifying the domain that sends the request.
If you use server-side tagging with the configured subdomain, tracking requests are sent from your primary domain, meaning AdBlocker can't detect it. For example, they check if the requested domain is google-analytics.com to detect and block GA. However, with the server-side tracking and custom subdomain, Google Analytics will send requests from your custom subdomain, such as ss.example.com, which means that Adblockers can't detect whether it's GA or not.
Server GTM and server-side tracking can enrich data. For example, you can track orders via phone in Google Ads or Facebook. This may help you build custom audiences or get a full picture of where orders are coming from.
Another frequent use of data enrichment is sending order information from payment systems like Stripe. It helps ensure all sales data appear in GA, FB, or other analytics tools.
This benefit is significant for SEO. Third-party tracking scripts can slow down your site, which leads to two adverse effects: lower organic position and worse user experience. Many studies have shown that page load time correlates with bounce rate. The longer your page takes to load, the more likely users will not wait and close your page, leading to a higher bounce rate.
Site page speed is one of the critical organic ranking factors. Especially now that Google has rolled out mobile-first indexing and core web vitals. Reducing the number of tracking javascript on your site may have a massive impact on your organic positions.
Many of Stape's clients decided to set up server-side tracking mainly for better page speed. A large part of these clients contacted us because of Klaviyo javascript. It slows down the site immensely. But the good news is that the Klaviyo server-side tag does the same thing as the web integration, and you can switch to Klaviyo server-side tagging without losing any integration feature.
We also did a small experiment comparing the website page speed with web tags vs. server-side. Google also has an article showing how Nemlig improved its page load time by 7% by moving tags to the server.
Anyone can see your tracking ID in the console or using a browser plugin with web tracking. Server-side tracking has the opposite situation - your tracking IDs are hidden. It may help to prevent spam hits.
Server-side tracking allows you to track offline events like phone orders, website chats, in-store purchases and leads in the CRM. This provides more accurate tracking of your paid campaigns' results and helps create more precise custom and remarketing audiences.
The most popular implementation of server-side tracking so far has been the Google Tag Manager (GTM) server.
Stape is the biggest contributor to the tag library in the world, with 80+ tags approved and added to the sGTM library.
Using the tags, you can easily manage the data processing and further distribution.
Server-side tracking has numerous benefits. The most important are improved tracking accuracy, faster page load, and data control. Since Safari and Firefox prevent third-party cookies, Chrome will phase out third-party cookies in 2025, so it’s about time to switch to server-side tracking.
There are two main downsides of server-side tracking: costs and complexity. But stape.io hosting for server Google Tag Manager fixes those. With Stape, you can set up server-side GTM hosting in 1 click, plus we are 5 times cheaper than Google Cloud. And if you need help setting up server-side tracking, we can help, too!
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