Background
By default the majority of analytics and ad tracking code is implemented on the browser side. This is easier to set up with simple plugins or minor javascript snippets added to website code.
For the first year, this was Venice Technologies' setup on the LMBK website as well, which was effective at gathering useful Google Analytics data, understanding who our customers were and optimizing Google Ads to conversions.
To take things to the next level, we moved everything to server side tracking.
Objective
Going through the effort of setting up server side tracking has many benefits, among them:
- More accurate data collection and conversion tracking by mitigating the impact of Adblockers, tracking restrictions like ITP, iOS 14 and broken javascript
- Faster website load times by removing client side tracking javascript. This in turn leads to a lower bounce rate & improved SEO results.
- 1st party cookies (our website) vs. 3rd party cookies (Google, etc.). With first party cookies, the lifetime is 2 years versus as short as one day for third party.
- Reduced impact from ad blockers because data is sent from a subdomain of the website (ss.lmbksurfhouse.com)
Implementation
- Venice Technologies already used Google Tag Manager to implement all of our conversion tracking for analytics (Google) and ad tracking (Google, Meta, Linkedin, Snapchat). This is contained in our primary container.
- A secondary (server) container was set up containing Meta conversion API & GA4 tags. This container has client connections to Google Analytics 4 and Stape.io.
- The server container is deployed via Stape.io hosting
- Cost savings and resilience versus deploying to Google Cloud directly
- Easy implementation of custom tagging server URLs and custom loader to help make Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics 4 scripts more resistant to ad blockers and ITPs
Prior to implementing SS tracking:
- Up to 40% of users classified as direct
- A large portion were not being attributed properly, particularly for paid social channels
After implementing SS tracking:
- Direct traffic closer to 10%, reflecting true user acquisition channels
- Paid social channels being attributed properly, leading to a huge increase in ad efficiency
