One of the most important aspects of successful marketing is collecting insights about your users and customers. It’s this data that allows you to optimise your campaigns for maximum results.
Marketers today use several methods to understand their customers, one of which is server-side tracking. Server-side tracking is used to improve data collection, analysis, audience targeting, and compliance with regulations such as GDPR.
What Is Server-Side Tracking?
With traditional tracking methods, such as client-side tracking, user data is sent directly to a third-party service like Meta or Google. With server-side tracking, the data is first routed through your own server before being forwarded to various analytics and advertising services.
This gives you greater control over what information is shared and makes it easier to ensure compliance with GDPR.
While traditional pixel tracking gives you access to around 40% of the available user data on your website, server-side tracking allows you to collect as much as 97%.
Traditional pixel tracking relies on cookies to identify and follow users between sessions. As more browsers block cookies – and users opt out via cookie banners – pixel tracking loses its ability to track. Server-side tracking moves data away from the browser, meaning broswer restrictions no longer affect data quality. By combining both pixel tracking and server-side tracking, you capture conversions that the pixel would otherwise miss.
How Does Server-Side Tracking Work?
Server-side tracking may seem complex, but at its core it comes down to three main steps.
1. A user performs an action
This could be anything from visiting a website to completing a purchase. Instead of sending the data directly to an analytics service, it is first sent to the website’s own server.
2. The server captures and filters user data
Once the data reaches your server, you have the ability to anonymise it and select which data should be stored to personalise the customer journey,
3. The data is forwarded to platforms
After your server has filtered the data, it is sent on to a service or platform such as Google Analytics 4 or the Meta Pixel.
Benefits of Server-Side Tracking
Better data collection
Server-side tracking is far less affected by ad blockers and browser restrictions than standard pixel tracking. This means you can collect significantly more user data that would otherwise be lost.
Better decision-making
With more reliable data, you get clearer insights into which ads, channels, audiences, and offers perform best – allowing you to make more informed decisions about your marketing and business development.
Personalisation
Server-side tracking gives you a more detailed picture of customer behaviour and preferences, making it possible to tailor your marketing for greater relevance and precision.
Understanding the customer journey
By analysing your customer journey and identifying bottlenecks, you can make adjustments that increase your conversion rate and improve your return on investment.
Improve algorithm learning
Accurate and complete data is essential for AI-driven algorithms on advertising platforms to find the right users to show ads to, and to learn and optimise results over time.
Would you like help implementing server-side tracking? Don’t hesitate to reach out to us and we’ll go through everything together.
