More and more questions arise about how to make Google Analytics 4 (GA4) tracking reliable, especially with the growing influence of adblock detected bypass. Many users are seeking solutions on how to bypass adblock detection and maintain accurate tracking, leading to a surge in inquiries about how to get past adblock detection without compromising data integrity. Approaches like Google Analytics cookieless tracking are also gaining attention, as businesses look for ways to preserve data quality while adapting to stricter privacy standards.
That’s why we've developed a powerful feature for our Custom Loader power-up – Enhanced ad blocker protection, which:
| This feature is available for all users that are hosting server GTM container on Stape. If you don’t have a Stape account, please sign up and follow a detailed guide on how to set up server-side tracking in our blog. |
2. Select your sGTM container on the dashboard.
3. Click Power-ups, then click the “Use” button next to the Custom Loader panel.
4. Toggle the Custom Loader switch.
5. Configure Custom Loader with the following settings:
If you use the Shopify, WordPress, Magento, BigCommerce, Wix, or PrestaShop platform, you’ll need a respective app/plugin/extension developed by Stape to set up Custom Loader.
1. Download and configure the app for your platform:
- Shopify: download link, configuration guide.
- WordPress: download link, configuration guide.
- Magento: download link, configuration guide.
- BigCommerce: download link, configuration guide.
- Wix: download link, configuration guide.
- PrestaShop: download link, configuration guide.
2. Go back to the Custom Loader setup page. Once you’ve entered all the Code & Setup information, click the Generate button.
3. Follow the instructions on the Configuration panel to set up Custom Loader in your app.
If you select the Other platform, you will be given a JS code to use on your site instead of the standard GTM loader. To configure the code, enter the following extra information:
You can click Advanced settings to enter additional information:
6. Click Generate. You will then be given instructions on how to add a Custom Loader to your site (or a JS code if you selected the “Other” platform).
Make the necessary changes on your website (add the code), or in the Stape applications you use.
When adding the Custom Loader to the site, make sure you also remove the standard GTM loader if you have one.
Test the setup of Custom Loader
To check if everything works correctly, right-click on any website page → click Inspect → open the Network tab. Then, enter your custom subdomain or the same origin path if used.
If everything is correct, you should see the Google Tag Manager request URL and “200 OK” Status Code.
Below is an example of encrypting the GA4 request with the active Custom Loader and enhanced ad blocker protection toggle:
And here is what it looks like without the Custom Loader and without enhanced ad blocker protection configured:
While Custom Loader helps you bypass blockers, Ad Blocker Info power-up shows you how many of your visitors actually use them. It adds a header to every sGTM request and returns true if an ad blocker is on, and false if not.
This way, you see the real share of traffic that hides ads and decide if you need to change ad placements or budget.
| Note: Ad Blocker Info only works once the Custom Loader is active. |
1. Log in to your stape.io account.
2. Select your sGTM container on the dashboard.
3. Click Power-ups, then click the Use button next to the Ad blocker info panel.
4. Toggle the Ad blocker info switch and click Save changes.
Test Ad Blocker Info
To check that the Ad Blocker Info power-up works properly, open your sGTM container’s Preview mode, trigger some events on your website, and then check if those requests include X-user-adblocker headers (True if the ad blocker is active and False if it is not).
With Stape Analytics you can observe how “Enhanced ad blocker protection” has influenced your Google Analytics 4 performance.
It helps to understand how many users you have with technologies that interfere with tracking (adblockers). But the number of users depends entirely on the audience that visits your site, in some cases it is 5% of the audience, in some 50%.
If you would like to activate Stape Analytics and see the value of using server side, simply go to your Stape sGTM container to turn on Analytics.
A client activated Stape Analytics in early November. Initially, they observed that only 8.55% of their website visitors were being tracked by Google Analytics 4, which corresponds to the percentage of visitors who had ad blockers preventing GA4 tracking.
The client was losing valuable data from a significant portion of their website visitors, as users with ad blockers were not being tracked properly by GA4. This limited the accuracy of their analytics and the insights they could gain for optimizing their marketing strategies.
After activating "Enhanced ad blocker protection" toggle within Stape's Custom Loader in late November, the client observed a significant improvement in the tracking accuracy. The percentage of website visitors with ad blockers increased to 35% on average, and these users were successfully tracked by GA4 thanks to the bypass functionality.
Case study: 20% of data recovered from tracking prevention | Peak Metrics
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