What server-side tracking is
The same conversions you track today, sent by a different messenger.
- Today
- Every visitor's browser loads Google's scripts and sends each conversion to Google itself. If an ad blocker, a browser rule or a closed tab stops that request, the sale is never reported.
- With server-side tracking
- The browser sends one request to a subdomain of your own store, and your tagging server passes the conversion on to Google Ads and Analytics. The request goes to your domain, and your server decides what leaves it.
Why it matters for your profit
Google's bidding spends your budget on what it can see. Sales it never hears about make the campaigns that earned them look weaker than they are.
- Cleaner data for Smart Bidding
- Bidding learns from the conversions that reach it, with their real value. Complete, deduplicated purchases are what let it put budget behind the ads that sell. That is where the profit is: not more sales from the same ads, but bids that know which ads already sell.
- Ad blockers
- Many blockers and privacy extensions stop requests to Google's own addresses. A request to your store's subdomain is blocked far less often, so fewer sales disappear on the way.
- Safari and iOS
- Safari's tracking prevention limits cookies that scripts write in the browser to seven days (WebKit, ITP 2.1). A shopper who clicks your ad and buys ten days later then looks like a new visitor. A tagging server on your domain sets its cookie in its own response, which Safari treats differently; we host it the way Google documents for this.
- Consent
- With consent mode v2, your cookie banner's answer travels with every tag. The tags behave as each visitor chose, and Google can model the conversions of those who declined instead of losing them without a trace.
- Your first-party data
- Your server decides what is sent: which fields go to Google, which are hashed first, and which never leave.
- Faster pages
- Tags that run on the server do not have to run on your visitor's phone, so each page loads less third-party code.
What we do in the one-time setup
One project, done with you, and then it is yours. There is no subscription to us for it.
- A server-side Tag Manager container
- Created and connected to the web container your store already uses.
- A first-party tracking subdomain
- For example olcum.yourstore.com, pointed at the tagging server so the requests stay on your domain.
- Enhanced conversions
- The customer's email from the order, hashed before it is sent, so Google can match the sale to the ad click.
- Consent mode v2 signals
- Your cookie banner's answer passed to every tag, on the browser and on the server.
- Purchase value and duplicate checks
- The order's real amount and currency, and the order number, so one sale is counted once even if the thank-you page is opened twice.
- A before and after report
- The conversions Google Ads recorded in the weeks before and after the switch, read from your own account.
What you need
- DNS access
- To add one record for the tracking subdomain, or someone who can add it for you.
- A small monthly hosting cost
- The tagging server runs on hosting you pay for directly, for example Google Cloud. The amount depends on your traffic; we tell you what to expect before anything is set up, and the bill is between you and the host.
- Access for the setup
- Admin access to your store platform, your Tag Manager container and your Google Ads account.
Results vary
How many more conversions reach Google depends on your visitors, their browsers, your cookie banner and how your store measures today. We do not promise a percentage. The before and after report shows what changed in your own account, and if your store already measures well, it will say so.
Sources
The effects above are described in words. The one number on this page comes from the source that published it.
Ask for the setup
Tell us about your store. We reply with what the setup involves for it and its one-time price; the hosting is the only monthly cost, and you pay it to the host.