You’ve probably already heard about server-side tagging. It’s getting more popular mainly because of the Facebook Conversion API, which was designed to increase targeting and conversion tracking accuracy. Besides FB, more and more platforms have started supporting server-side tracking last year, including Google Analytics, Google Ads, TikTok, and email platforms like Klaviyo or Active Campaign, etc.
If you have doubts when or if you should start implementing ss tagging, this article may be interesting for you. Here I want to talk about server-side tagging benefits.
After implementing server-side tracking, our clients see an immediate increase in their PPC campaigns results. According to Google’s research, Square has seen a 46% increase in reported conversions from Google Ads after implementing server-side tracking.
Adblockers, tracking restrictions like ITP, iOS 14, broken javascript all affect the accuracy of the data you collect about website visitors. And these are the main reasons why Facebook, Google, and other platforms highly recommend their users start implementing server-side tracking.
You most likely see the different numbers of purchases in your CRM compared to GA. For some of our clients, Google Analytics was underreporting 25% of purchases compared to the CRM data. After setting up ss tracking, this discrepancy decreased to 3%.
Server-side tagging can help improve the data loss due to ITPs, iOS restrictions, and it may also decrease the impact of AdBlockers. It all happens for two reasons: using a custom subdomain for server-side tracking that sets first-party cookies and replaces request domain, as well as advanced event matching based on user data.
It is crucial to understand the difference between tracking restrictions and user consent. You should respect the user’s decision to opt-out of tracking and not fire any tracking scripts or set cookies if users do not give their permission.
By the way, we have a blog post that describes how to use consent status in the server Google Tag Manager.
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