How to set up Google Tag Manager server container

To set up a GTM server container, do the following steps:

• Create a Google Tag Manager server container 
• Create a Stape account to host your server GTM container
• Configure a custom tagging server URL
• Create a Google Tag inside the Web GTM container
• Create Google Analytics: GA4 Event tag
• Create GA4 client inside server GTM container
• Check and debug your setup
• Set up a Custom GA4 Loader

By the end, you’ll have a fully functional GTM server-side container, capable of bypassing ad blockers, increasing cookie lifetimes, and much more.

There are many common elements between web and server containers, like tags, triggers, variables, preview mode, etc. However, the setup of the GTM server-side container is more complex than that of the standard Google Tag Manager web container.

The main complexity of setting up a GTM server container is configuring the cloud environment to run the sGTM container. With the help of Stape, configuring cloud servers for sGTM will take only 5 minutes, and there is no need to hire developers. Besides that, Stape offers additional features on top of the Google Tag Manager server, like bypassing adblockers, increasing cookie lifetime, sending offline data, etc.

Below is the step-by-step guide on how to set up a Google Tag Manager server container.

1. Select your GTM account → Click Admin → Click + next to the Container name.

2. Add Container Name → Under Target platform, choose Server. Click Create.

3. Choose Manually provision tagging server. Copy your container config. We will need it in the following steps.

1. Go to stape.io and create an account or log in.

2. Click Create sGTM container on the main page.

3. Enter your container details.

• Container name - give your container a name (for convenience, we recommend using the same name you gave to the server container in GTM).
• Container configuration - paste the Container Config data that you copied from the Install Google Tag Manager pop-up. If you lost it, go to Google Tag Manager → click Admin → click Container settings → copy the string under Container Configuration.

• Server location - for best performance, choose the server location that’s closest to where most of your clients are. See the list of available server locations here. Also, you can opt for the Global multi-zone server location option if you have traffic from different regions. It will automatically route incoming requests to the nearest available zone based on the user’s IP address.

Then click Create Container.

4. Choose a plan for your container. You can start with a Free plan. Click Continue with a Free plan.

5. You will see the status of your container, container config, and plan name. It takes around 5 minutes to deploy a server container. 

Please reload the page to update the status. If the Google Tag Manager server-side setup was done correctly, you should see the status Running. 

Use a custom tagging server URL, also called a custom domain, to set first-party cookies. This URL should use the same root domain as your website. For example, if your website is `example.com`, your tagging server URL can be `ss.example.com`.

There are three ways to set up a custom domain:

• Same origin – tagging server shares the exact domain and path with your site. Read more on how to set up a custom domain with the same origin. 
• Subdomain – tagging server runs on a subdomain of your root domain. In this article we will guide you through this setup.
• Default domain – no custom domain; uses the standard Stape-provided address.

Сhoose your container on Stape, scroll down to the Domains (Tagging Server URLs) section, and click +Add new.

Add Subdomain name - it can be any name that works for you, just be sure to avoid using phrases specific to advertising or tracking: ad, gtm, stgm, tracking, analytics, metrics, stape, gtag, etc.

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) distributes your website's assets across a global network of servers to reduce latency and improve load times for users in different locations. It is useful if your audience is geographically distributed or if you want to improve cookie tracking and data accuracy.

By default, the CDN is disabled, which means JavaScript files (like gtm.js, gtag.js, and analytics.js) are served directly from the server location where your sGTM container is hosted. Effectively, it bypasses both Stape Global CDN and Own CDN options and gives you a direct, unproxied connection between your site and the sGTM container.

To enable the CDN, click the Add CDN toggle and select one of the following options:

• Stape Global CDN - loads scripts from a server closest to your website visitor's location, which reduces latency and improves page load times for geographically distributed audiences. We will use the Stape Global CDN in our setup. This feature is free and available for all Stape sGTM containers.
• Own CDN (incompatible with the Automatically (via Entri) connection option) - helps route sGTM custom domain and proxy sGTM traffic through the DNS provider of your website. In this case, the IP addresses of your website and the custom domain of the sGTM will match, and server-side cookies will be considered as first-party. As a result, it gives the ability to increase cookie duration.

Next, in the How to connect section, there are two ways of connecting a custom domain to your container:

• Automatically (via Entri)

The easiest way to connect domains. Log in with your DNS provider details via Entri, and give us one-time permission to connect your domain. That's it, you can proceed directly to Step 5 to verify your domain; no manual configuration is required.

• Manually

With this option, you have to add DNS records manually to your hosting provider to connect your subdomain to Stape.

After you add a custom subdomain to your container, you will see DNS records that should be created to verify the custom domain. The DNS record depends on the server location and the CDN option you choose. In the next step, we show how to add DNS records.

By default, subdomain verification is performed with CNAME records, but you can verify your subdomain with A and AAAA records if you need to (usually in cases when you need to avoid adding duplicated records).

We will cover both options below with a step-by-step guide on how to create records using Cloudflare. But you can use any other provider.

Once you've entered the DNS records to your DNS provider, return to the Stape container page where you've been configuring the custom domain and click Verify.

Wait for Stape to finish verifying your custom domain (when the container status bar changes from Verifying to Ready). Usually, it takes 2-3 hours to verify the custom domain. For some DNS providers, verifying records might take up to 72 hours. We will email you once the custom domain is verified or any error is detected.

If you face any problems with domain verification, please follow our guide on troubleshooting a custom domain.

Go to your Google Tag Manager server container → Admin → Container Settings → change Tagging server URL to your subdomain.

Update the script

If you use a custom domain, updating the Web GTM script on your website is highly recommended. This tweak will load gtm.js from your domain. To do so, replace the default domain googletagmanager.com with the custom domain you set up in the previous step.

Alternatively, you can automate this process with the Custom Loader power-up. Instead of manually editing the GTM script, Custom Loader generates a ready-to-use code snippet that loads GTM and GA4 scripts directly from your custom domain. This saves your time, makes your tracking scripts more resilient to ad blockers, and assures all cookies are treated as first-party.

You’ll see your new custom domain in your sGTM container’s list of domains. If you’re on a paid subscription, you will also see the Tracking Score estimating the quality of your domain’s tracking setup.

Click on your domain to access its settings:

Click Score to get more information about the Tracking Score report. Tracking Score report gives you an overview of your tracking setup health. Be sure to click the View full report button to get the full information, or New scan to update the report. Learn more about what constitutes a full report in our guide.

Open your Web container, create a new tag - Google Tag. Add your Google Tag ID.

In the section Configuration settings add the following parameters:

• Name: server_container_url.
• Value: Enter the URL you've created.

Add trigger to GA4 tag. Normally it should trigger on all page views.

Optional: You can also create a Google tag: Configuration settings variable that will predefine Google Tag settings if you need to use multiple Google Tags on your website and do not want to add settings for each of the tags manually.

These parameters can be, for example, a setting that defines whether you want to send a page view event every time a Google Tag triggers, set UTM parameters, client ID, etc. There is a list of standard Google Tags configuration parameters.

To set up the GA4 event, go to the tags section and create a new tag with the tag type Google Analytics: GA4 Event. Add your GA4 ID and the event name; there is a list of standard event names.

Open Google Tag Manager Server container → click Client → create GA4 client and save it → go to Tags and set up GA4 tag. Remember that GA4 automatically sends not only pageviews but also some other events.

Inside Event Name, choose variable {{Event Name}} → add trigger Client Name equals GA4.

How to publish the GTM container that you created on the server side? Open the Web and Server container preview modes and check that you see GA4 requests. Then, publish the update inside the server and web Google Tag Manager containers.

You can make Google Analytics 4 server-side tracking even more accurate by using a custom GA4 loader. This will allow GA4 to work around any blocking tools, such as ad blockers and other privacy-related technologies that aim to prevent trackers from gathering data about visitors' activities. As a result, you'll see the complete picture of users visiting your site and have more data for ad optimization and custom audiences.

How to set up Custom Loader:

1. Log in to your Stape account and select your sGTM container from the dashboard.

2. Go to Power-ups and click Use next to the Custom Loader panel.

3. Toggle the Custom Loader switch to enable it.

4. If you want to encode tracking requests sent from the browser to your sGTM container, toggle the Enhanced ad blocker protection. By masking recognizable URL patterns and tracking signatures, it prevents ad blockers from identifying and intercepting those requests.

5. Click Save changes.

6. In the Code & Setup information section, choose the Platform - here you can either:

• Select your CMS platform (such as Shopify, Wordpress, etc.). In this case, you’ll be required to install and configure a Stape app. 
• Select Other to receive a JS snippet in case you’re using another platform or a custom website.

7. Once you've updated the web GTM code and set up server-side GA4, you can check modified GTM and GA4 requests in the network.

Google Tag Manager request URL should look like this:

Tagging server URL/stape container identifier.js?st=web GTM ID without letters GTM.

In our case, it's https://load.gtm.stape.dog/covxbvwx.js?st=PMVQSJH

GA4 request URL should look like this:

Tagging server URL/gt+stape container identifier.js?id=GA4 identifier.....

In our case, it's https://load.gtm.stape.dog/gtcovxbvwx.js?id=G-0SME9XLYER

In this thread, a user was unsure how to configure their Google Tag Manager server container and asked whether there was a “correct” setup. The issue turned out to be a misunderstanding: there is no single right or wrong configuration - it depends entirely on what data you need to send and which platforms you’re integrating with. Because you can’t diagnose a setup from just a container ID or sGTM URL, the solution was to review the full container configuration, and the recommendation was to involve a tracking specialist if you’re unsure how to structure events.

That’s it. Now, you’ve set up a server container, and Google Analytics runs via your server container. If you want to load GA within your domain and make GA request 1st party follow these steps to use a custom subdomain. And our team of experts can help!

And if you also want proof of your skills, certification can help you stand out. It shows clients or employers that you understand both browser and server-side setups and that you’ve learned them in depth.