There has been enough hullabuloo about the restrictions placed on user data collection and tracking behavior by privacy lawmakers. The technologies used for data collection through different marketing campaigns favor client-side tagging, giving more control to third-party platforms such as Google and Facebook. There has been no transparency on how they use the advertiser’s data. In other words, data that you have been collecting under your brand label never belonged to you before data privacy laws came into effect.
The regulations and compliance around data privacy support and encourage server-side tagging as a fundamental technology. The improved performance and high-end security of data have made server-side tagging an improved choice against client-side tagging that depends on browsers and third-party servers.
This blog will help you understand why leading technology companies such as Google and Facebook introduce server-side versions for tag management to paid media marketers and what that means to businesses. If you are already familiar with any of these sections, you can jump to the most relevant ones.
You will be introduced to
- Introduction to server-side tag manager and when is it used?
- How do marketers benefit from these interfaces?
- Why do Google and Facebook encourage server-side tagging?
- Why choose server-side tagging?
Introduction to server-side tag manager and when is it used
To resolve customer data tracking in the lack of client tags, tag managers have responded with server-side solutions. The majority of the server-side solutions provided by demand-side platforms such as Google and FB support only advertisers on their platform.
With server-side tagging, the server containers use the same tag, trigger, and variable model, but it also provides new tools that allow you to measure user activity.
- Here the server runs in your Google Cloud Platform project, and only you have access to the data in the server. As a result, you have complete control over how the data must be processed and routed from the server. Tags use the sandboxed JavaScript technology.
- The permissions offer transparency on what the tag can do, and policies allow you to limit boundaries around the container.
- The marketer can include tags into its server container in Tag Manager with email marketing campaigns. When a customer loads the site, it runs in the server container after the page loads, allowing marketers to measure the success of the campaign without affecting the customer experience.
Here is what the leading demand-side platforms say.
Google quotes that “Server-side tagging enables the Tag Manager users to transfer measurement tag instrumentation from the website or app to server-side processing through Google Cloud.”
Facebook also officially launched the Conversions API tag template for server-side tagging. Google also released its server-side tagging containers in Google Tag Manager (GTM) due to its benefits and how it manages consumer data. The server-side tagging became more accessible as it is cheaper and delivered within a tool that the businesses are already using.
Server Side Tag Manager provides numerous benefits over client tagging. If you want to give your customers a better and improved website experience, secure your customer data, and control third-party tags’ behavior, you need server-side tagging.
How do marketers benefit from these server-side solutions?
Both the interfaces from Google and Facebook are focused on enabling the following for marketers:
- Retargeting
- Creating sources of lead generation
- Building lookalike audiences aka Look-Alike Modelling
- Programmatic advertising, and
- A/B test.
Magic Pixel built from the ground up as a server-side Tag Manager provides integration with any media provider that exposes server-side tagging capabilities. Magic Pixel generates First Party ID for every unique visit via its ID Link service serving as a key for all media needs as well as analytics requirements.
Why Google and Facebook are encouraging server-side tagging?
Demand-side platforms are now turning towards server-side tagging and encouraging users to do the same. The fundamental reason is that they are preparing for the future. The future of marketing is going to be cookie-less. They are marching towards an ecosystem with the absence of third-party cookies.
Here are some of the top reasons.
1. Narrowing cookie duration window by browsers
Browsers responded with scrutiny of how their users’ data can be protected. The major culprit emerged as the third-party cookie. This resulted in every browser, one after the other discouraging third-party publishers from collecting user data. The most famous being the ITP by Safari. Now, browsers in their own words restrict the third-party cookies from staying live on the browsers for not more than 24 hours. This means the cookies stored on the web browser go extinct. This does not serve the purpose of long-term user tracking for paid media marketers.
2. Distorted Customer identity
Without the ability to attribute the source of a user and who the visitor is, marketers cannot use any further hacks to optimize campaigns. This simply means storing cookies on the web browser with short windows for attribution, users cannot be distinguished from customers. They cannot be assigned with any kind of ID as it keeps changing on the browser. While using a web server is a different case. Storing information on the server allows marketers to route the behavior of a user back to their history.
3. User preferences
More aware users are setting restrictions on how much of their data can be used by marketers. Users choose to use only trusted websites and provide permission to restricted activity. Third-party cookies on the browsers are no longer on the user preference list.
4. Defunct lookalike audience
No customer identity means no ‘lookalike’. The use of a lookalike audience on Facebook Custom Audience will no longer be effective for campaign optimization. Lookalike Audiences are a highly effective tool in the acquisition toolkit. It helps to reach people who look similar to your best customers. You can reach customers in just a few clicks.
What does choosing server-side tagging mean to your business?
The server-side tagging has a direct impact on enhancing customer experience.
It results in improving site performance, improved data security, and data enrichment. For example, you will encrypt sensitive data or prevent PII from being sent to non-affiliated parties.
Retargeting motivates people to complete the purchase and convert. Try to offer special offers or spread your messages to people who visited your primary website pages. This allows enticing them to revisit the website and signup or complete a purchase.
The hackers won’t be able to use third-party API keys and tokens for debugging or misuse. As a result, marketers can defend their analytics and advertisement tracking IDs from being exposed while increasing security and reducing spam.
Server-side tags are secure HTTP response tags, and it involves running these tags through a first-party server or back-end environment. It is a more preferred and secure way of firing tags and tracking data. The data runs through your server before sending it to an external receiver like Google Analytics, Facebook, or Bing.
Magic Pixel provides quick server-side integrations to Google’s Ads APIs and Facebook’s Conversion API. No coding is necessary.