For years, companies have used client-side tags and pixels to track website visitors, improve user experience, optimize conversion rates, and show ads to the right audience. However, these types of trackers are now losing their appeal. More and more browsers are dropping support for third-party tracking, making it increasingly difficult to collect data via client-side techniques.
Companies that want more accurate data on user behavior and customer journeys are switching or looking at alternatives, such as server-side data collection. Server-side data collection is in many situations a good solution to the problem of increasingly unreliable and fragmented client-side data.
Server-side methods can also be confusing. Especially since there are so many different methods. It is also important to realize that server-side trackers and tags – usually not detectable in browsers – must also comply with the same compliance rules as client-side tracking. This now applies to almost all tracking methods.
Server-side tracking vs. client-side tracking
Server-side and client-side tracking are methods used to bring data collected via a browser (server-side is a server that provides the browser with website data) to an analytics platform. Both methods help collect data about visitor interactions on websites or apps. The difference lies in the way the data is collected.
Client-side tracking
With client-side tracking, data is sent directly from the user’s browser (also known as the “client”) to an external third-party server, such as an analytics solution. This data transfer is possible by placing small pieces of JavaScript code (tags) on each page of a website. Typically, a tag management system is used.
The way data is collected is changing
For many years, client-side tracking was the most common method of data collection, but this is now changing. Browser privacy mechanisms, such as Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP), limit the lifespan of cookies and prevent ‘fingerprinting‘: the process of collecting and combining small pieces of information about a user’s device to form a unique picture of a user.
Client-side methods are less reliable
In addition, it also prevents ‘CNAME cloaking‘, a method used to ‘disguise’ a third-party domain as part of the first-party domain, allowing a third-party to track as a first-party. In addition, more and more Internet users (37% worldwide) an adblocker to block trackers. All of this makes data collected using client-side methods more fragmented and therefore less reliable and useful.
Server-side tracking
With server-side tracking methods, the collected data is sent to a server hosting a website or app and then passed on to an analytics platform. This process creates an additional layer between a website and a data collection platform, providing greater security and control.
Server-side data is more user-friendly
Although the concept of server-side tracking may seem new, it goes back to the early 1990s and the dawn of web analytics. Back then, marketers could use log analytics to gain basic insights about visitors to their website, such as location and referring sites. Newer methods have made working with server-side data more user-friendly and effective.
Server-side tracking with a first-party collector – the hybrid method
With server-side tracking using a first-party collector, cookies are set from a proxy server within a (sub)domain of a website. Tracking requests go directly to the domain instead of via a third-party analytics platform. It is a hybrid model, combining the benefits of client-side data collection with server-side logic and central processing of data.
The benefits
Server-side tracking with a first-party collector offers many advantages for companies that want to collect unfragmented data about customer journeys:
- Higher data accuracy: Server-side tracking helps extend the lifespan of analytics cookies, making the data more accurate.
- Betere data security: Server-side tracking is a secure method to track sensitive data and rebuild the complete customer journey, because no data is shared with the client-side.
- High-quality dataverzameling: Server-side tracking provides the same data granularity as client-side tracking, such as traffic sources, referring sites, page views, conversion rates, scroll depth, etc.
- Lightweight: No separate platform or on-premises deployment of major components is required, limiting the impact on infrastructure.
- Independence of Google products: With this method, you don’t need to use server-side Google Tag Manager or use Google servers – this can be especially important due to privacy concerns or strict internal policies.
The disadvantages
Despite these advantages, and the fact that server-side tracking with a first-party collector is seen as one of the most reliable alternatives to client-side analytics, it also has disadvantages:
- It cannot be used without the user’s permission: Although server-side trackers and tags are generally undetectable in browsers, they still require the same compliance rules as client-side tracking. However, this is now true for virtually all tracking methods.
- The implementation is more complex than with client-side analytics: Server-side tracking is a lot simpler than log analytics, but still requires time, resources, and expertise.
- Server-side data collection only applies to analytics: the method only works for a part of the data stack. If you want to use all marketing tools server-side, other methods are needed, such as server-side tagging.
Server-side tagging
Server-side tagging uses a special tag manager server that hosts all the data and then sends it to the appropriate marketing tools. Instead of installing third-party scripts directly on your website, you get a buffer that separates your website and user data from third-party vendors and their trackers. With a server-side component, the web browser only sends one request and you can control what data is shared with which service. This allows you to limit data collection and manage how much data you give to third parties.
The benefits
Server-side tagging offers marketers and analysts a number of advantages:
- More control over data and better data protection: It is possible to mask or remove certain data, so that suppliers do not get full information about your website visitors. In addition, user data is better protected when it is collected and distributed in a customer-managed server-side environment. You can select which data is shared with specific suppliers.
- Improved website performance: Server-side tagging allows you to move tag management from your website or app to a server-side processing container in the cloud. Or to another external platform, improving website performance.
- Data enrichment: By using server-side tag management it is possible to enrich data with information from different tools, such as a CRM or a transaction system.
- Longer lifespan of cookies: In many cases, server-side tagging helps to extend the lifespan of cookies and collect more reliable data.
The disadvantages
There are also a number of disadvantages to server-side tagging:
- Server-side tagging en AVG: Server-side tagging solutions create a unique ID for each visitor, which falls under the definition of personal data under laws like GDPR. This means that you can only collect this type of data with the visitor’s consent. Anonymization circumvents this problem, but also loses important insights about customer journeys.
- Server-side tagging implementation: To set up server-side tagging, a specialized tag management system is required. This process also requires the installation and management of a web server or a special database in the cloud, which results in additional work for technical teams.
- Cost: Installing additional servers will incur additional costs.
- Limited support for server-side tagging: It is wise to check whether the tools in your data stack support server-side tagging before investing in them. Not all marketing vendors have integrated tags for this technology yet.
Choosing server-side?
Before you decide to go server-side, there are a few important things to consider. Both server-side tracking and tagging help to improve the reliability of data. However, even with server-side methods, you have to think about privacy regulations, such as the GDPR. Furthermore, switching to server-side will not solve the problems around data loss due to the disappearance of third-party cookies:
- Server-side analytics tracking is a method used to extend the lifespan of first-party cookies. However, it does not solve the problems with third-party tracking.
- Server-side tagging does not solve the challenges of remarketing in an effective, privacy-conscious way. With the phasing out of third-party cookies, retargeting anonymous visitors across sites is becoming increasingly difficult.
In short, does your organization have extensive experience with analytics and do you use data for important decisions? Then investing in a server-side setup can yield significant benefits.
Source: www.frankwatching.com
