Server side tracking
In recent years we’ve seen an explosion of data collection about users’ online behavior. For example, with every click you make, you can become part of a target audience, or the next page you visit is personalized based on your displayed behavior. This behavioral data is collected via the browser through scripts, usually third-party scripts, and is sent directly to a server. This type of tracking is called client-side tracking.
Recent research shows that consumers are more aware of their rights when it comes to sharing their personal information, but they don’t know what kind of (personal) information is being collected. Even companies, that collect the data, do not always know what data they collect is shared with which third party. And with the use of third-party scripts, they don’t even fully own the data that is collected on their platform. Moreover, with the growth in the number of laws and regulations from governments, it is becoming important to take control of your own collected data before it is shared with third parties such as Google and Facebook.
For some of our clients, we have implemented Server-side tracking to give them more control over their own data and enable them to better protect their users from unwanted data sharing with third parties.
One thing we do know; server-side tagging via a tag management solution such as Google Tag Manager is not the solution to all problems related to measurement and data collection. Without the correct guidance and operational excellence, it can backfire. However, when managed correctly within an organization it can flourish by improving the data accuracy and quality and improving (client-side) site performance without impacting important topics such as user privacy and data security.
What is server-side tracking?
Client-side delivery of data is commonly accomplished through tags, one of the most popular ways to transmit data from web pages. This type of tracking involves the user’s browser (client) directly sending data to a server from third parties. The method is used for collecting and sharing data from your website to your marketing technology vendors and is referred to as tag management.
With server-side tracking, this is a bit different. Instead of sending data directly to the servers of third parties, with server-side tracking you collect the data in your own server environment before sharing it with third parties. This gives the website owner full control over what data is stored in what location. As sharing data with third parties is handled in the server environment, third-party scripts are no longer needed which can speed up the website and reduce the impact of adblockers, to name a few advantages.
At DotControl, we have defined two approaches to implement Server-side tracking. The first one is the Hybride approach, where the Google Tag Manager (GTM) web container still can be used to inject client-side scripts. The second approach is the Purist approach with a full GTM server-side integration
The Hybrid approach
The Hybride approach of server-side tracking is a more flexible setup compared to the Purist approach as marketeers and other participants within the marketing stack could make changes without involvement of developers. Besides of the flexibility, this also speeds up the process of tag and event implementation.
Another advantage in this situation is that client-side tracking takes place on the user’s device, giving direct access to user-specific data, such as cookies, URL parameters, user agent, referrer, and IP address. By collecting on the client, you can easily collect and track all of these pieces of information to use to trigger other actions. With this approach, data is being collected via the web container and send to the server container, making it able to configure tags and scripts client-side, while enjoying the benefits from client-side tracking.
The Purist approach
The purist approach is taken into consideration when security, performance, and robustness are vital for an application or platform. With the purist approach all needed tags, events, and other needed data are put into the same process as development. Resulting in a close(r) collaboration between growth/marketing and development. This development process guards the platform in several ways from development to production and prevents unwanted code and errors from breaking the site. We all know that such a situation should be prevented by all means.
The Purist approach is chosen with the following guidelines in mind:
- Is there any data coming offsite; when data is not coming from your own platform, server-side tracking can be robust in an organization's data architecture
- Is it utterly important to maximize application speed and performance at all costs?
- Is your goal to remove all unwanted code to streamline the code on your application or site?
- Are your users by all means using ad-blockers? Hence resulting in missing data
- Is this data extremely sensitive and does it require the highest security possible?
These are just some challenge questions we provide to determine the complexity of the project, now and in the future.
|
Traditional GTM |
Hybrid |
Purist |
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
js script |
gtag.js/gtm.js |
gtm.js |
gtag.js |
|
server-side |
no (client) |
yes |
yes |
|
EU Privacy |
no |
if transport_url points to GTM SST |
yes |
|
Need to set transport_url in every gtm tag? |
yes |
yes |
no |
|
Can use all traditional GTM Tags |
yes |
yes |
no |
|
Silos |
✅ marketeers can make changes without developers |
✅ marketeers can make changes without developers |
✅ marketeers and developers need to work together |
|
Performance |
slow |
medium |
fast |
|
Clear separation of responsibilities between marketing and dev? |
no |
no |
yes |
|
QA |
Manual |
Manual |
testing can be automated |
|
Risks of breaking site with tracking by growth |
high |
high |
low |
|
Risks of breaking site with tracking by dev |
high |
high |
low |
|
Configuration costs |
low |
medium |
high |
|
Hosting costs |
zero |
high |
high |
|
Chance of being blocked by AdBlocker |
high |
medium |
low |
|
Chance of missing data due to 3rd party cookie blocking |
high |
medium |
low |
Not every situation warrants, or is capable of, server-side data collection and delivery. Oftentimes, traditional client-side tags are the optimal solution and it’s critical to have flexible capabilities taking both traditional and emerging data management practices into account within the same platform.
However, migrating from client-side to server-side tracking brings many advantages. The most important advantage is that you have full ownership of the data you collect before sharing it with third parties. This advantage can help you better protect the privacy of your users, something that is becoming more important for them.
There is much more to uncover about server-side tracking, the different options, and how this affects your GA(4) set up in particular. Throughout the following months, we will share more about the above options more in-depth.
Need help?
Do you want to know more about the advantages of server-side tracking or do you want to know what a migration process looks like at DotControl? Please get in touch with us!