Browser tracking protection mechanisms are getting more robust, 3rd party cookies are blocked by some browsers, Chrome plans to phase out 3rd party cookies by 2022, Apple implemented their tracking restrictions for iOS users. All these changes affected web analytics. We used to consider website tracking a front-end thing, but web tracking is getting more challenging with all the new restrictions. Some say that server-side tracking will become a new standard.
Server-side tracking technology is a growing trend in website analytics. It allows for improved data analysis, faster website page loads, and more secure user information storage while maintaining accurate tracking. The most popular implementation of server-side tracking so far has been server Google Tag Manager (GTM). More and more vendors have started to support server-to-server tracking and released tags for sGTM. Using these tags, you can share website or app events and user data directly from your server GTM container to the vendor’s server.
What cost can you expect for server Google Tag Manager hosted on Google Cloud? Is it a good idea to use a test environment on the productions site. Why stape’s hosting for server GTM is cheaper and how we secure our user’s data.
One of the ways to use server-side tracking is sending data directly from your server endpoint to the server GTM container. This guide will show how you can send requests to the GTM server container with webhooks and how to see and test webhook data in the server Google Tag Manager container. We’ll also go over some common scenarios where it makes sense technically and practically speaking.
Accurate tracking is getting more problematic because of privacy restrictions. With Apple’s iOS 14 update, users will be asked to opt out of or opt in for tracking on iOS devices. Studies show that around 90% of users will choose to opt out of tracking. It means that tracking pixels won’t work for 90% of iOS users. This article will describe how to set up the Facebook Conversions API for Unbounce so that Facebook and Instagram tracking still work accurately.
In this article, I want to show you how to use Data Tag. This custom tag sends parameters from the Google Tag Manager Web Container to the Server Container. When used together with the Data Client for the Google Tag Manager server container, it allows sending data layer variables, custom parameters, and other data from the web to the server container. As a result, Data Client retrieves information from the Data Tag into the Google Tag Manager Server Events.
Want to track the results of your Google Ads (AdWords) campaigns? Then you need to see what users were doing on the site after they clicked on your ad. The typical user actions include submitting a contact form, adding something to a cart, or completing a purchase. What if you decided to move your tracking to a server-side? In this article, I’ll show you how to set up Google Ads (AdWords) conversion tracking using Google Ads tag for the Google Tag Manager server container.
Website page speed optimization was one of the essential benefits that marketers and web developers saw when the first version of Google Tag Manager was released. It was supposed to happen because tracking scripts would no longer be hardcoded but would be added through Google Tag Manager. So, does the GTM web container speed up your site? This article will showcase how moving to the GTM server from Google Tag Manager Web Container can speed up your website. Please note that you won’t see any pagespeed improvements if you’ll combine server and browser tracking. For example, your site’s pagespeed won’t increase if you use both Facebook pixel and Conversion API. In this case, FB pixel will still work in user’s browsers and slow your site.
A common issue for data analytics and sales managers is the accurate tracking of user behavior and conversions. And often, they might face a problem that seems to have no solution. Or alternatively, there are no developers who can do this, and the next update of the site is planned only for next month.
What if you are faced with spam in Google Analytics reports? Does it mean that someone can access your Google Analytics accounts? Or maybe someone can modify data inside your GA? How can you prevent it? There are two main types of Measurement Protocol spam: referral traffic and events spam. More rarely you can see spam in languages, keywords, URLs, transactions, and so on. In this article, I will explain what Measurement Protocol spam is and how you can prevent it with the help of Google Tag Manager Server-Side tagging.
In this article, I will describe the advantages of using GA4 and GTM server tagging. You can use it as a step-by-step guide on how to send events to GA4 via the GTM server container. As for eCommerce/enhanced eCommerce, I will cover it in another article.
Zapier is the most popular software that helps connect your apps and automate workflow. It became the number one tool in this niche, but using Zapier may be too expensive for some businesses since it limits the number of tasks and events you can send in each plan. This article will explain how you can use Google Tag Manager Server-Side container to replace one of the most popular Zapier features – automatic Slack notifications.
In this article, I will describe how to set up a custom subdomain within your Google Tag Manager server container. The main advantage of a custom subdomain inside the Google Tag Manager Server container is that it helps to bypass Intelligent Tracking Preventions, AdBlockers and increases cookie lifetime for users browsing in Safari. Pixels will be loaded from your subdomain and run as the first-party.
Collecting data about your website visitors is critical for analyzing and improving the online business presence, reaching users, and converting them into customers. However, collecting data is becoming more problematic because of Intelligent Tracking Prevention, AdBlockers, and a decrease in cookie lifetime. Google Analytics and other similar tools will start seeing fewer data about your website visitors and giving you less information to analyze.
We answered all your questions about GTM server-side: what is it, how it differs from client-side, and how to set it up. Learn how server-side GTM enhances performance, security, and compliance in our comprehensive guide.
