Six Benefits of Server-Side Tagging
Jeffrey Edwards
|Marketing | January 19, 2023
In a client-side tagging scenario, when a conversion event occurs and you want to notify the marketing platforms of it, your website needs to download a JavaScript library from each vendor’s content delivery network.
So, if you have 12 vendors, that’s 12 libraries, each generating requests to various endpoints as they set first-party cookies, pass third-party cookies, and collect information for digital fingerprints. And all this code and logic is executed in the user’s browser.
For years, this has been the standard operating procedure for most marketing organizations. The site performance and governance implications of client-side tagging were a price worth paying for businesses to have the insights they need to drive more conversions on their websites. But now, rising performance requirements and regulations around user privacy are making it difficult for client-side tagging to meet performance and privacy needs.
The Problem with Client-side Tagging
The reality is that many client-side tagging implementations are cumbersome, and there’s a lack of control and security. Neither the website nor your visitors have much power over what your vendors do. Data can be bounced around to various partner trackers, making it practically impossible for the site’s owners to do due diligence when attempting to comply with legislation like the GDPR and CCPA. And finally, client-side tags simply cannot collect the breadth of data that they used to. The advent of adblockers and lightweight, non-JavaScript environments like Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) have stripped client-side tags of much of their previous functionality. With server-side tagging (SST), all these concerns can be addressed.
Server-Side Tagging with CHEQ
Server Side Tags (SST) offer a means of running Manage deployments within a virtual web browser. server-side tags are invoked from an Ensighten Pulse call. As a result, any device or software that is capable of making network requests can now trigger tag rules, regardless of whether they support JavaScript. Email campaigns, display advertisements, set-top boxes, point-of-sale systems, kiosks and more can now trigger deployments.
In a server-side tagging implementation, your vendors no longer run their scripts in the user’s browser. Instead, a lightweight beacon in the browser sends a single stream of data to the server-side tagging endpoint. In the server, this data is validated, vetted, parsed, and then sent only to the vendors that should receive it. On the client side, this means faster page load times, better customer experience, and even better search engine optimization.
SST is generally more reliable because the scope of data management is greatly reduced, and the organization can exert more control over the transmission. And SST isn’t as susceptible to data challenges due to client-side issues like an interrupted connection, an over-active adblocker being installed, or AMP pages with limited JavaScript functionality.
Want to learn more about SST? Check out our on-demand webinar, The Power of Meta’s Conversions API and Server-Side Tagging, where experts from Meta and CHEQ demonstrate how to improve the targeting, effectiveness, and data security of your Meta campaigns by leveraging the Conversions API (CAPI) and server-side tagging.
Six Benefits of Server-Side Tagging
Improve Site Performance and Load times
Move heavy tags and complex logic to the Server Side to lower the burden on client browsers. With tags moved Server Side, brands can improve site performance and page load times through less execution on the browser and more on the Server.
Increase Mobile Optimization
Transfer heavy tag code and logic from mobile browsers to your servers, speeding up customer experiences and reducing the toll on devices.
Enhanced Data Collection
Enable data collection where it would otherwise not be possible such as AMP pages, to pull analytics data from the page and run a fully configured analytics implementation on the server side.
Streamline Data Collection Strategy
Cover your entire digital ecosystem with Pulse 1st-Party Tracking from offsite to onsite and in-store. Enable SST to fire API calls or other JavaScript code server-side to send data to other endpoints.
Enable Real-Time Data
With SST in place, data is immediately piped downstream for use by other technologies within the ecosystem as well as DMPs and DSPs for media optimization and reduced ad spending.
Improve Governance and Security
With SST, all data is first-party data, and you fully control the data and the environment. That means easier compliance with regulations like GDPR and CCPA and improved client-side security with less hijackable JavaScript from the client-side and less potential for client-side data leakage of personally identifiable information such as IP address and browser details
Author
Jeffrey Edwards
Content Marketing Manager
Jeff is the resident content marketing expert at CHEQ. He has several years of experience as a trained journalist, and more recently in his career found a knack for communicating complex cybersecurity topics in an approachable yet detailed manner.
