At digital marketingtagging consists of adding code snippets to a website so that a computer or analytics tool can track activity on a website.
In today's environment, these strategies of tracking are fundamental to understand and analyze user behavior, to design and marketing campaigns and also to measure their impact and return on business results.
Due to the implementation of the new Consent Mode v2, as a requirement to comply with the new General Data Protection Regulation, all website owners have observed how their websites have become more and more compliant with the new General Data Protection Regulation. analytical data have dropped dramatically overnight.
This has resulted in a substantial loss of information on the number of users and sessions, their behavior, the attribution of sales and thus a loss of information on the number of users and sessions, their behavior, the attribution of sales and thus a loss of information on the number of users and sessions, their behavior and the attribution of sales. long list of negative effects which are even more bleeding into small and medium-sized websites.
In the midst of this disheartening panorama, Server Side emerges as an innovative tracking technology, which allows us to manage the data generated on our website in a more advanced and efficient way; and in this Geotelecom article, we explain it to you.
What is Server Side Tracking measurement?
Unlike traditional client-side tracking, which relies on cookies and scripts executed in the user's browser, server-side tracking allows the following to be tracked the data, before being sent to the analysis tools, passes through a dedicated server of its own where we can modify and enrich them.
This not only improves the accuracy of data collection, but also provides greater security, speed and control over the information shared with third-party platforms.
In this blog post, we will discuss its main benefits, its implementation requirements and in which situations it may be a good idea. supplement our measurement pixels with those generated by the Server Side technology:
Client-side measurement vs. server-side measurement
Customer-side measurement (client-side tracking), involves the use of third-party cookies and tracking pixels that are loaded directly into the user's browser.
Although it is easy to implement and provides detailed real-time data, it currently presents significant challenges, such as data slowdowns due to ad blockers, rejected cookies or privacy issues.
It is estimated that this information loss may range from 30% to 40% after the implementation of Consent Mode V2 and will likely increase over the next few years.
On the other hand, the server-side measurementIn server-side tracking, data is collected directly on a proprietary server and then sent to analysis platforms without relying on client interaction. While server-side tracking is NOT intended to circumvent user consent.With the right configurations, it is possible to substantially improve the % of data reaching the data analysis platforms.
As a major disadvantage, implementing server-side measurement pixels is somewhat more complex than client-side and requires some technical knowledge of configuration for which we must have the help of a computer technician. In addition, it is necessary to pay for the rental of the server where we are going to store our data.
What are the main benefits of Server-Side tracking?
Server Side Tracking is designed to give companies more control over the data that is collected from their users and especially to control what is sent to third party platforms such as Google Analytics.
Until now, there have been three main reasons for using this type of labeling:
To improve the privacy of user data
For example, personal data, such as users' IP addresses, can be removed from data sent to third-party providers.
To improve the performance of websites or applications
Page speed is improved by significantly reducing the amount of third-party code loaded in the user's browser.
To improve data quality
For example, on the server, it is possible to enrich the conversion data with the first party data from a CRM system to be sent together to Analytics.
At present, and due to the new legal context of data protection in which we find ourselves, server-side monitoring can also help us to "manage" and "alleviate" data loss caused by ITPs, limitations of operating systems such as iOS and AdBlockers.
What are the requirements to implement Server Side Tracking?
Server Side Tracking is implemented using the free Google Tag Manager tagging tool. However, the type of container we need to create for this type of tagging is a container of type Server instead of a Web container.
The next thing we will need is a server on which to run the container. This server can be hosted on Google Cloud, but we can also use an alternative specialized provider (there are already several options on the market and will be increasing).
This second option is usually easier to set up if we do not have a technician at our side to help us with the configurations. The rental of this server entails a variable additional cost, but both Cloud Run and other companies offer free plans that are perfectly valid for initial testing and testing the measurement.
Once the server URL is obtained, we must enter it in the GTM Container Settings.
Finally, as a previous step to the configuration of the labels, we must create a custom domain for our labeling server.
The custom domain helps browser cookies that the server container reads and writes to be considered first-party cookies rather than third-party cookies and are not as easily blocked. This step is optional, but it substantially improves the amount of data that we will be able to absorb from our users.
Once all these steps are done we are ready to proceed to the configuration of our labels in sGTM (GTM Server). If we already have previous experience creating measurement pixels with GTM we will find this process much easier, since the operation of sGTM is also based on labels, variables and triggers.
You can consult a complete guide to server side label implementation in this link of basics for Server Side Tagging by Google Developers
When is it a good idea to implement Server Side Tracking?
Google's lurches on issues related to measurement and cookies are quite unpredictable at the moment, but everything seems to indicate that in the long term the adoption of Server Side measurement will be widespread and highly recommended by Google itself.
However, at this point it is far from urgent or mandatory. Indeed, we will only be interested in implementing server side measurement for our website in these circumstances:
- Advertising investment and analytics work on my website is large enough to justify the expense of development and maintenance.
- Our ecosystem is complex and we want to combine data from various sources, in addition to those from web and app (offline conversions, CRM, external databases).
- Security and privacy of data is very important for my company and we want to ensure maximum control over them.
- We know more or less for certain that we are losing a large amount of data due to adblockers.
- We work with several advertising platforms that do not belong to Google, such as Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn...
In conclusion, the Server Side Tracking is a powerful solution to improve data collection and data quality in an increasingly complex digital environment.
Although its implementation requires certain technical knowledge, offers significant advantages, such as greater control over data, improved website performance and a greater ability to adapt to changes in privacy policies.
Depending on the characteristics of our company and our needs, this technology presents itself as a valuable investment that will help us will allow us to remain competitive in a constantly evolving digital landscape.
