How to easily add user agent and geo data to server Google Tag Manager

Stape offers many solutions and power-ups to simplify and improve server-side tagging possibilities. In this article, we want to discuss Custom Loader, User Agent Info and GEO Headers power-ups. We'll explain how these power-ups work and can be used inside your server Google Tag Manager (sGTM) container.

Custom Loader's main function is to protect GTM and GA4 scripts from the impact of ad blockers and ITPs. However, and more importantly in the context of this article, it automatically adds geo parameters to your tracking data. This makes this power-up the most streamlined and straightforward way to enrich your requests with geo data.

For more information, see our detailed guide on configuring Custom Loader.

User Agent Info power-up allows you to add information about the browser and device to incoming requests of your sGTM. You can easily extract data from headers and use it in any of your sGTM tags. 

When User Agent power-up is enabled inside your server, Google Tag Manager container, the following headers are added: 

• X-Device-Mobile
• X-Device-Os
• X-Device-Browser
• X-Device-Browser-Version
• X-Device-Engine
• X-Device-Engine-Version

• X-Device-Model
• X-Device-Platform

When GEO header power-up is enabled, the following headers are added to sGTM requests:

• X-GEO-Country
• X-GEO-Country-Name
• X-GEO-Region
• X-GEO-City
• X-GEO-Ipaddress
• X-GEO-PostalCode

This product includes GeoLite2 data created by MaxMind, available from https://www.maxmind.com

By activating the GEO Headers power-up, you gain valuable information about the location of your website visitors. With the help of this data, you can modify tag delivery based on the user's country, region, or city. For example, ask user consent based on the country where a user is located or build remarketing audience depending on their territory. 

If you check Event Data on hits claimed by GA4 Client - the geo/user_agent data will not be mapped to Event Data. However, you can use sGTM native Request Header variables to reach those data points.

Event Data is a layer populated by whichever Client (see sGTM → Clients) has claimed your request. Since GA4 Client is a proprietary, native tool - it does not map those custom headers into Event Data. However, you can check the presence of those headers by checking the Incoming HTTP Request in the Request tab of your sGTM preview. To utilize this data, you need to use the Request Header variable in your sGTM, which works exactly the way the Event Data variable does, only references different things.

Custom Loader, User Agent Info, and GEO Headers power-ups help to quickly access device, browser, or geographical information from sGTM headers and use this data in server tags.

If you have any questions about Custom Loader, User Agent Info, or GEO Headers power-ups, or any other issue, don't hesitate to contact Stape support.