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How to implement Google Ads server side tracking?
Implementation of Google Ads server side tracking has couple of advantages:
- it may help to improve your page load time by reducing the amount of code you have to run on client side
- it may reduce the impact of ad blockers
- you will have more control what kind of data you sending to external vendor
Step by step guide how to implement Google Ads server side tracking.
In this guide we will send data from the web constainer to the server side container. Before you start implement Google Ads server side tracking make sure that you already have
In your web container:
- implemented GA4 configuration tag in your google tag manager client container becasue all Google ads tags in a server side container relies on the GA4 configuration tag that you implemented in your web container
- implemented GA4 event tag for conversion
- make sure that you marked your event as conversion in Google Analytics(GA4) configuration
In your server side container:
- impemented GA4 client (if not follow this instruction: How to setup GA4 client on server side Google tag manager container)
Then you are ready to:
- Set up the Conversion Linker server-side tag.
In your server side GTM container create new tag chosing "Conversion Linker" type, using All pages trigger type:
- Setup Google Ads Conversion Tracking tag.
You have to define your Conversion ID and label (you wil find this details in Google Ads panel). The rest information like Transaction ID, Conversion Value, Currency Code are automatically read from the corresponding ecommerce field which you already using to send information to GA4 via GA4 event (to activate that in the tag configuration you need to set on "Provide product-level sales data" and as data source chose: "Event data").
As a trigger you have to create the new custom one, using the same definition that you are already using in your client side container.
- Setup enhanced conversions
You can send to Google Ads server user provided data that you already defined to be sent in GA4 configuration tag on client side.
For additional information please reffer to Google documentation which available here:
https://developers.google.com/tag-platform/tag-manager/server-side/ads-setup
Piotr Ulacha
Piotr Ulacha is a web analyst. He has 15 years of experience in the digital marketing area. He specializes in implementation of analytical and marketing tracking codes, creating dashboards and data privacy topic. He works currently as a Web Analyst at EverStores.com where he implement tracking solutions for eCommerce brands. Previusly he worked at SellerX with eCommerce brands and at Artegence where he analyses the impact of marketing campaigns for Volkswagen Poland.
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