Server-side Tag Manager allows you to move your Google Ads conversion tracking tags from the webpage to the server-side, which will help improve page load time and increase your ads conversion tracking accuracy. Moving Ad tags onto server-side tagging will also reduce the amount of code that needs to run on the webpages and aid with performance issues for slower internet connections!
In this article, we’ll show you how to set up Google Ads (AdWords) conversion tracking using Google Ads tag for the Google Tag Manager server container.
Google Ads conversion tracking is a must if you want enough data to analyze your advertising tracking results, conversions and give Google machine learning algorithms more information about your business goals. Google will use conversion data for smart bidding and show your ads to the users most likely to convert.
This means that you need to specify these actions in Google Ads to track all valuable actions users can take on your site. We suggest adding not only purchases as conversions in Google Ads. You might also set up micro-conversions such as add to cart, form submit, etc. You can select a conversion action for each campaign separately inside the campaign settings. This conversion action will be included in the ‘Conversions’ column and will be used for Smart Bidding.
Conversion tracking inside a Google Ads account is crucial because it shows which search terms, keywords, ads, or campaigns have the most conversions, highest ROAS, or lowest cost/conversion.
You can even adjust conversion data after the initial conversion has occurred, for example, due to order return or cancellation.
The main benefits of adding conversions to Ads are:
As you can see, Google Ads can significantly enhance your advertising and marketing. Now, let’s get right to the setup.
Google released Google Ads Conversion tracking and Conversion linker tags for the Google Tag Manager server container in July 2021. With the new change to GTM server-side tracking, you can now get more out of your Ads account. This means that you will have access to more reliable server tracking, making conversion data accurate!
Google Ads conversion tracking works only based on the Google Analytics 4 tag, meaning that if you want to set up Google Ads tracking yourself, you should configure server-side GA4. Unlike Facebook, Google Ads do not support deduplication, so you should use either web or server-side conversion tracking.
Follow the steps below to set up Google Ads server-side tracking.
We have a detailed instruction on how to send data from GTM Web to the Server container using Google Analytics 4 (formerly Universal Analytics). Please follow its steps to create and configure the Google Tag Manager server container.
Follow this instruction to create and set up the server Google Tar Manager container.
Follow these guides to send data from the web to the server using:
The next thing you need to do is configure the server-side Google Analytics 4.
We have a detailed user manual on how to set up server-side Google Analytics 4 in our blog post.
In the Server container, set up the Conversion Linker tag. This tag should trigger on all pageviews.
Create a new Google Ads Conversion Tracking tag in the Server container → add Conversion ID and Conversion Label similar to the web Ads tag setup.
Then, you can add Product and User Data (it looks very similar to how Facebook's conversion API works). If you send user and product data from the web to the server, you can enable these checkboxes and select event data as a data source. Our Ads server conversion triggers on the purchase event.
That’s it for the server container. But Google also added a bonus to the web Google Ads tag.
You can set up enhanced conversion tracking in the server-side Google Ads conversion tag. This means that it's possible to send user data to Google Ads.
Why set enhanced conversion up?
Log in to your Google Ads account → Tools & Settings → Conversions → check Turn on enhanced conversions.
In web GTM, go to “Variables” → in the section “User-Defined Variables” → click “New” → add the following settings:
Go to the “Tags” section and find the GA4 tag or create it (click “New” → Tag Type: Google Analytics: GA4 Event).
Then check the box “Include user-provided data from your website”, and in the section “User Data”, choose the variable you created in Step 2.
In the server GTM container, go to Tags → New → Tag configuration “Google Ads Conversion Tracking”.
Add triggers based on needed conversion events. The tag will automatically process user data from GA4 requests.
Server Google ads product remarketing tag works based on the Google Analytics 4 product data.
Open the Google Ads Remarketing tag inside the server Google Tag Manager container and enable Send dynamic remarketing event data.
To make dynamic product remarketing work, make sure that in the web Google Tag Manager, you've configured product data inside the Google Analytics 4 tags.
First, test that the Google Ads Conversion tag was triggered in the server container and that the request it sent was correct.
Check that the FPGCLAW cookie was added. It will work if you add the gclid parameter to the URL.
Setting up server-side tracking in Google Ads is not difficult, but it does take some time. You can set up this type of tracking by using the Google Ads tag for the server container or server-side Google Analytics.
If you need help setting up either one, don’t hesitate to submit a help request. We have experience with both methods and would happily estimate the cost if you are interested in our services.
Do any of these sound like they could work for you? Let us know which method sounds best from the ones discussed today, or let us know what your needs are so we can find the right solution for you.
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Ira has 10+ years of digital marketing experience, with the last 5 focused on server-side tracking. She understands how and when it works across various digital marketing scenarios.
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