How to set up Impact server to server conversion tracking

Using affiliate marketing to bring in revenue for your company is a great idea. On the other hand, if done correctly, it is also a good method for affiliates to monetise a website which may be quite profitable.

Affiliate conversion tracking has grown difficult as a result of cookie restrictions, Apple's Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP), Firefox's Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP), and ad blockers. Because of this, you might want to think about server-side affiliate tracking.

Here we will discuss the Impact server to server conversion tracking: how to set up the tag and how it works. 

What is server-side Impact tag?Copy link to this section

Stape created an Impact tag to submit events that you would like to report on and potentially pay partners for.  Conversions come in many different forms, with sales, leads, and subscriptions serving as common examples. 

Using server Google Tag Manager, you configure the Impact tag that sets first-party cookies. These cookies can not be blocked because they have first-party status. Which result in more accurate data.

The other benefit is improved pagespeed. When you implement Impact tag on server side the tracking code is reduced which means faster loading time of your site. 

Besides that, data that this tag gathers is under your control. Client-side tracking has the potential to collect more data than you authorized. For instance, it may scrape personally identifiable information (PII) from your users, which is against GDPR and your privacy statement. But here, on server side, you have total control over what information was provided.

How to set up Impact tag using server Google Tag Manager?Copy link to this section

1. Create and set up a server Google Tag Manager container. 

2. Send data to the server GTM container. In these blog posts: Google Analytic 4 and Data Tag/Data Client, you can find the description on how to send data to ss GTM.

3. Download Impact tag from GitHub -> Open templates sections in the server Google Tag Manager container -> Click New. Or add it from the Community Template Gallery. 

4. Click three dots in the top right corner -> Click Import -> Select Impact tag template you’ve recently downloaded from GitHub -> Click save. 

5. The first step would be to set cookies with the affiliate ID when the user visits your site. Create a new tag with type Impact tag -> Type PageView -> Add URL parameter that you would like to store in cookies -> set cookie lifetime -> Add trigger.

6. Test Impact tag. You should see that this tag triggered successfully in the server Google Tag Manager Preview mode, and the cookie was set. The cookie name will start with impact.

7. The next step would be to set up a conversion event. There is a list of required fields to set up Impact conversion event, please refer to Impact documentation when configuring conversion event fields. 

8. Once you’ve done setting up and testing, do not forget to publish server container changes.

ConclusionCopy link to this section

The greatest time to start implementing server-side integration to improve conversion tracking is right now if you consider affiliate marketing to be one of your company's traffic and conversion sources. Client-side tracking and third-party cookies are no longer reliable. Additionally, it will become much less trustworthy when Chrome eliminates third-party cookies.

I hope that setting up server-side Impact tag was made easier for you by this blog article. Stape's agency can assist you with setting up server-side tracking for your website. Please contact agency@stape.io.