36% more conversions with server-side Google Ads tracking for Shopify | Lars Friis

Our partner Lars Friis is a Danish tracking expert. He supports eCommerce and SaaS businesses in improving their marketing performance with advanced, privacy-compliant tracking solutions. 

In addition, he collaborates closely with the Stape team and actively contributes to the creation of new Google Tag Manager templates.

Lars’ client has a Shopify store and runs ad campaigns on Google Ads. The client uses Shopify’s Google App, which connects their Shopify store directly to Google Ads. Lars Friis' customer wasn’t sure whether it was worth switching to server-side Google Ads Shopify conversion tracking.

To estimate the effectiveness of server-side Google Shopping Ads tracking for a client’s case, Lars Friis has run an experiment - he tracked Google Ads campaigns' performance with different configurations:

1. Server-side Google Ads conversions tracking in Shopify with Stape’s solutions + Client simulator.

The configuration includes configuring the server GTM container and Stape’s app for Shopify. Also, Lars has faced the problem that Shopify Google Ads conversion tracking not working for 15% of the customers who did not see the receipt page, which is typically due to Mobilepay (mobile payment app) and slow redirect/loading of the page. So, he has set up the Client simulator, which was used to receive orders directly from Shopify's back-end and connect them with the customer's click-ids, cookies, and consent.

2. Google Shopify app.

This is the tracking solution that a client has used for Google Ads conversion tracking Shopify. It tracked the data simultaneously to compare the results of client-side and server-side tracking.

As a result of an experiment, Lars Friis has managed to track 36% more conversions using server-side Google Ads conversion tracking and Stape’s solution.

Such an increase in the number of conversions tracked is possible due to overcoming the following limitations in Shopify:

• 24-hour cookie lifetime (Safari ITP);
• The customers couldn’t see the receipt page (there is no link to Shopify’s backend);
• No modeling on cookie rejectors (Consent Mode).

Server-side tracking and Stape’s app for Shopify became an effective solution for Lars Friis’ client to collect Google Ads data more precisely. As a result, they received 36% more conversions tracked, which no doubt contributes to better ad campaign optimization decisions. Tracking the right eCommerce KPIs helps you measure the full impact of improvements like these on your store's performance.

Big thanks to Lars Friis for his valuable insights and for helping in creating this case study.