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What is Signals Gateway & Setup Guide

Published
Feb 3, 2025

Meta's Signals Gateway is a comprehensive solution that simplifies sending first-party data from any origin to any destination, streamlining data flow across platforms. It integrates multiple data sources into one tool, providing seamless control over your data flow and ensuring efficient sharing across various platforms.

Benefits of Signals Gateway

1. All-in-one place control.

Signals Gateway offers a centralized environment where all your data management and sharing needs are handled in one place. It ensures a smooth and efficient flow of information from any source to any destination without the need for multiple tools or platforms.

2. No technical skills required.

You can quickly set up and customize configurations to fit your specific requirements without any coding expertise. The intuitive interface lets you manage data tracking seamlessly, removing the reliance on specialized developers. As a result, you can allocate your budget more effectively.

3. First-party data maximization.

First-party data offers greater control over privacy and compliance, and since it comes from your own audience, it helps create more targeted campaigns that resonate better with your customers, ultimately leading to higher engagement and return on investment.

How does Signals Gateway work?

Your Signals Gateway Pixel, SDK, offline uploads, and CRM integrations share data exclusively to your own cloud server. These data sources are centralized within your Signals Gateway, giving you full control over where the data is sent, whether to Meta or another destination. With the customized connector, Signals Gateway simplifies sharing data with any platform. Additionally, Signals Gateway offers a built-in integration with Google BigQuery, which helps you to run data analyses.

In practice, you can use the Signals Gateway Pixel to send events and user data it collects to non-Meta destinations. Currently, the variety of destinations is limited, but it is expected to expand in the near future. You can choose which events you want to exclude from being sent to these destinations in the pipeline.

How does Signals Gateway work?

Stape hosting for Signals Gateway

Stape offers a variety of pricing plans to suit your needs: Free, Pro, Business, and Enterprise.

Prices start from 20$ a month for 1 000 000 events. And if you choose a yearly plan – it will cost you only 17$ a month on a Pro plan. 

Our Free plan allows up to 10,000 events per month. No credit card required!

You can also use the pricing calculator on our website to help determine which plan is the best fit for your site.

Stape hosting for Signals Gateway

How to set up Signals Gateway?

In order to set up Signals Gateway please follow these steps:

  1. Create Signals Gateway on Stape.
  2. Accept invitation link to access your Signals Gateway environment.
  3. Set up your login and password.
  4. Add data source and data destination in your Signals Gateway environment.
  5. Optional: add custom domain.
  6. Test your setup. 

Detailed step-by-step guide

Step 1. Create Signals Gateway on Stape.

If you do not have an account yet:

  • Click this link.
  • Add your email, Gateway name, and select server location. We offer several server locations: the United States, Europe, South America and Asia Pacific.
  • Click “Create”.

We will send you an email with the link to set a password to your Stape account. Follow the link from the email to set a password. 

create signals gateway account

If you already have a Stape account:

  • Click Signals Gateways in the main menu, and click Create Signals Gateway.
  • Then you can add the Signals Gateway instance name and the email address you'd like to use for managing the Gateway environment (it can differ from your Stape login) and select the server location.
  • Click “Create gateway”.
create signals gateway account
create signals gateway account

Step 2. Choose a subscription plan and finish the setup on Stape.

2.1. Select the Signals Gateway subscription and add your billing details.

Stape offers a free plan, so you can add your billing later by deactivating the toggle "Upgrade the gateway to the next tier automatically". Click on "Continue with Free plan".

2.2. You will see the status of your Gateway - “Deploying”. Refresh the page until the status shows “Running”. 

status deploying

2.3. We will send you an email inviting you to set a password to your Signals Gateway. Check your mailbox and click Accept Invitation.   

Check your mailbox and click Accept Invitation. 

Or you can simply click on Finish Signals Gateway setup.

Finish Signals Gateway setup
Notice: in the future, to access your Signals Gateway click on the URL and paste it in your browser to log in.
url to signals gateway environment

Step 3. Configure Signals Gateway.

3.1. Add the email address indicated in the email admin on the first step and set a password. Stape does not store passwords to Signals Gateway; please save it to a secure place. Click “Create Account”. 

Configure Signals Gateway

3.2. You will gain access to your Signals Gateway environment. Click on “Create data pipeline” to proceed. 

Configure Signals Gateway

3.3. Select the type of pipeline you’d like to create.

Select the type of pipeline you’d like to create.
In the guide below, we will show you how to create a Signals Gateway pipeline through Signals Gateway Pixel with a destination to Meta. Meta is not a required destination to use the Signals Gateway.

3.4. Set up data pipeline.

Pick the Data pipeline name and select the desired Data sources and Data destinations.

Data sources - inbound events come through data sources associated with websites, apps, and data files.

Data destinations - outbound events data is sent to a pre-selected destination once it’s been processed.

Click “Continue”.

Set up data pipeline.

3.5. Set up Signals Gateway Pixel.

Add a name for your new pixel and indicate whether your website has a Meta Pixel.

If you have a Meta dataset that receives events from your website, a Meta Pixel is installed on the website.

If you have a Meta dataset that receives events from your website, a Meta Pixel is installed on the website.

In Additional features you can add Custom data source ID. 

If you already have a Signals Gateway Pixel code installed on your website, you can enter its ID here to continue using its pixel code.

If you already have a Signals Gateway Pixel code installed on your website, you can enter its ID here to continue using its pixel code.

3.6. Add Signals Gateway Pixel and events codes. 

Add Signals Gateway Pixel and events codes. 

Option 1: Share instructions with a web developer.

Simply click on “Copy instructions” and send a message to your developer. 

Share instructions with a web developer.

Option 2: Add Signals Gateway Pixel to a website yourself.

Copy and paste the base code to a website → Configure conversion events on your website by specifying event names and tagging them in your code.

Add Signals Gateway Pixel to a website yourself.

3.7. We, at Stape, would recommend using Google Tag Manager for this task. Add a Custom HTML Tag → paste your Signals Pixel base code →  give it a trigger and publish.

Add a Custom HTML Tag → paste your Signals Pixel base code →  give it a trigger and publish.

3.8. Configure Pixel to control how data for this pixel is gathered and processed.

Choose to enable or disable Data enhancement and choose Contact data treatment.

Data enhancement - send advanced matching data with your events.

Contact data treatment - hash contact data upon collection using the SHA-256 format. Data that is hashed cannot be reverted to its original form and cannot be used by some data destinations or for audience creation. 

Choose to enable or disable Data enhancement and choose Contact data treatment.

3.9. After you click “Continue” you will see that you’ve successfully started the setup for your Signals Gateway Pixel. 

After you click “Continue” you will see that you’ve successfully started the setup for your Signals Gateway Pixel. 

3.10. Connect to Meta with Conversions API.

Connect to Meta with Conversions API.

Option 1: connect Meta dataset.

You can use Facebook Login to automatically connect your Signals Gateway to your Meta Business Account.

You can use Facebook Login to automatically connect your Signals Gateway to your Meta Business Account.

Or you can Manually connect your Meta Pixel by filling our the fields using the information from the pixel’s dataset in Events Manager. 

Meta Business ID - the unique number used to identify a groupd of Meta business assets, such as ad account, managed by a business.

Dataset ID - the unique number associated with a dataset in Meta Events Manager. The Meta Pixel associated with the dataset will share the same ID. 

Access Token - the code which is generated automatically to help establish a secure connection with your dataset. 

Or you can Manually connect your Meta Pixel by filling our the fields using the information from the pixel’s dataset in Events Manager.

Option 2: select existing Meta dataset from Signals Gateway. 

select existing Meta dataset from Signals Gateway.
3.11. Your setup is complete! 🎉

Step 4. How a finished setup looks like.

On the dashboard, you will see an overview of your Pipeline.

On the dashboard, you will see an overview of your Pipeline.

On this stage you can edit: Data sources, Data destinations and set Pipeline filter.

Step 5. Optional: select another data source or edit it.

When you click on your current Data source, you will be able to adjust any settings according to your preferences.

When you click on your current Data source, you will be able to adjust any settings according to your preferences.

When you click “+” under the “Data sources”, you will be able to automatically or manually add data from files.

When you click “+” under the “Data sources”, you will be able to automatically or manually add data from files.

Step 6. Optional: edit Pipeline filter.

When you click on Pipeline filter, you will be able to block selected event types from being sent to all of the pipeline’s data destinations. 

When you click on Pipeline filter, you will be able to block selected event types from being sent to all of the pipeline’s data destinations. 

Step 7. Optional: select another data destination or edit it.

When you click on your current Data destination, you will be able to adjust any settings according to your preferences.

When you click on your current Data destination, you will be able to adjust any settings according to your preferences.

When you click “+” under the “Data destinations”, you will be able to automatically or manually add data from files.

When you click “+” under the “Data destinations”, you will be able to automatically or manually add data from files.

Step 8. Optional: add new pipelines.

Click on “Data Pipelines” and then on “Create data pipeline”.

Click on “Data Pipelines” and then on “Create data pipeline”.

Step 9. Optional: add custom domain.

Using a custom domain or data routing within your Signals Gateway can boost measurement performance. 

Click on “Account settings” → “Data routing” → “Optimize“.

Click on “Account settings” → “Data routing” → “Optimize“.

Write down the subdomain and domain names. 

Write down the subdomain and domain names. 

Next step will require you to define DNS settings for the custom domain. Ensure you can make changes through the DNS provider before proceeding.

Next step will require you to define DNS settings for the custom domain. 

Data destination: Customized connector.

If you want to send events to a unique endpoint, click on “Customized connector” and create a custom destination name.

If you want to send events to a unique endpoint, click on “Customized connector” and create a custom destination name.

Type your destination endpoint URL and choose an Authentication method. 

Configure the settings depending on the method. 

Type your destination endpoint URL and choose an Authentication method. 

Preview your payload and settings.

And it’s done!

Data destination: Google BigQuery.

If you want to send events to Google BigQuery, click on Google BigQuery and create a destination name. 

If you want to send events to Google BigQuery, click on Google BigQuery and create a destination name. 

Fill out the fields to configure your Google BigQuery destination.

Table ID - find it in the Google cloud with the format schema.dataset.table_id.

Service Account Email - enter the email address associated with your Google Cloud service account.

Private Key - enter your Google Cloud service account private key.

Click “Continue” and go to your BigQuery account to ensure data is collected.

Click “Continue” and go to your BigQuery account to ensure data is collected.

Plugins

On the left menu if you click on “Plugins”, you will see Stape CRM Apps

On the left menu if you click on “Plugins”, you will see Stape CRM Apps. 

Our Meta Leads API apps automatically report your CRM pipeline as conversion events to your Meta Dataset (Pixel). For now, Stape has developed apps for the following CRMs:

Read more about CRM apps from Stape in our blog post.

Conclusion

Signals Gateway offers a simple solution for establishing server-side tracking. Say goodbye to the hassle and expense of complicated configurations. With Signals Gateway, you can have it up and running, even if you’re not tech-savvy. Ready to give it a try? Start with a free plan today!

Try Stape for all things server-sideright now!