Tracking user behavior and interactions is crucial for understanding customer journeys, optimizing campaigns, and making data-driven decisions. With the rise of privacy concerns and the increasing complexity of user interactions across multiple devices and channels, different client-side and server-side tracking methods are available, each suitable for its own case.
More importantly, different types of server-side tracking aren't equal to each other and tracking efficiency would often be dependent on how well the choice between server-side and client-side is made for each conversion.
Client-side Tracking
The traditional approach client-side tracking involves embedding JavaScript tracking code directly into website pages. When a user interacts with the website, the tracking code captures events and sends data to the tracking server in real-time. This approach is easy to implement and provides detailed information about user behavior on the website. However, client-side tracking has its drawbacks. It is susceptible to ad blockers and privacy extensions, which can hinder data collection. Additionally, the tracking code can increase page load time and potentially impact user experience.
Key takeaways
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- Tracking code is embedded in the client-side (browser) environment
- Mechanism:
- Tracking code (e.g., JavaScript) is added to website pages
- User interactions and events are captured by the tracking code
- Data is sent directly from the browser to the tracking server
- Advantages:
- Easy to implement and widely supported
- Captures user interactions and events in real-time
- Provides detailed information about user behavior on the website
- Drawbacks:
- Susceptible to ad blockers and cookie blocking
- Increases page load time and may impact user experience
- Limited tracking across different devices or sessions
Hybrid Server-side Tracking
Hybrid approach to server-side tracking, such as adopted by server-side Google Tag Manager (sGTM), offers a solution that uses a dedicated server to proxy client-side browser events to one or multiple server-side tracking APIs. In this approach, the browser still collects user events and data, but instead of sending it directly to the tracking server, it forwards the data to an intermediary server. The intermediary server, sometimes referred to as container, then processes the data and sends it to the destination server.
While this method is popular, it's effective only if customers make purchase right away on the website and never come back.
Such server-side tracking still depends on tracking events in the browser. Even if they're sent to a first-party domain name, it relies on JavaScript code collecting each conversion event and cookies pointing to the original customer source and click identifiers being still present in the browser.
As it depends on click ids and browser ids being sent to the tracking server or container alongside each event, it only works with browser conversions, where such parameters are present in cookies. It can't be used to reliably track server-side events, such as recurring payments in a payment system, trial subscription activations, CRM qualification and conversion events and other similar conversions that don't correspond to an explicit browser action.
Key takeaways
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- Browser tracks events and sends them to an intermediary server
- Example: Server-side Google Tag Manager (GTM)
- Mechanism:
- Browser collects user events and data
- Data is forwarded to the intermediary server
- Intermediary server processes and sends data to the destination server
- Advantages:
- Allows for data manipulation and enrichment on the server-side
- Provides limited protection against ad blockers
- Drawbacks:
- Can only track conversions that occur in a browser
- Requires ad platform tracking cookies to be present at the time of conversion
- Requires additional server infrastructure and maintenance
Customer Data Platform Tracking
Customer Data Customer Data Platforms, such as Able CDP, focus on collecting visitor data during the first website visit and linking it with an identifier, such as an email address. CDPs can then attribute conversions server-side using this identifier and send the attributed conversions to the destination server. This approach enables a unified view of the customer journey across multiple touchpoints and allows for real server-side attribution and data integration.
Compared to client-side tracking and hybrid server-side tracking, the customer data platform's server-side tracking allows for recording the sources of customers and click identifiers. This enables the processing of further conversions without relying on tracking cookies at the time of conversion.
Not only does this allow tracking of actual server-side conversions, such as those occurring in payment systems, e-commerce platforms, or CRMs, but in many cases, conversion funnels that don't rely on cookies at all, even for short-term tracking, can be constructed.
Key takeaways
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- Collects visitor data on the first website visit and links it with a permanent customer identifier such as email
- Attributes conversions server-side using the customer database
- Mechanism:
- CDP collects visitor data during the first website visit
- Visitor data is linked to an identifier (e.g., email)
- Conversions are tracked and attributed server-side using the identifier
- CDP sends attributed conversions to the destination server
- Advantages:
- Enables a unified view of the customer journey across multiple touchpoints
- Allows for server-side attribution and data integration
- Doesn't rely on tracking cookies
- Drawbacks:
- Requires integration with a CDP platform
Pure Server-side Tracking
Conversions can also be tracked entirely server-side, eliminating the need for client-side tracking code altogether. Instead, server requests or CDN real-time logs can be used to derive user information, visitor sources and click identifiers without adding any tracking code to a browser.
User identification is done through server-side methods, such as user authentication, IP address, or cookies. Conversions and events are tracked server-side and then sent to a customer data platform as server-side events, where the data is processed and sent directly to the destination server.
This approach reduces the risk of ad blockers and provides a more privacy-focused solution. However, it has limitations is capturing certain client-side events and interactions and requires server-side infrastructure and processing capabilities.
Key takeaways
-
- Tracking customers entirely server-side without using client-side code
- Mechanism:
- Server logs and databases are used to track user actions and data
- User identification is done through server-side methods (e.g., user authentication, IP address, cookies)
- Conversions and events are tracked and attributed server-side
- Data is processed and sent directly to the destination server
- Advantages:
- Eliminates the need for client-side tracking code
- Reduces the risk of ad blockers and provides a more privacy-focused approach
- Allows for server-side data processing and integration
- Drawbacks:
- May have limitations in capturing certain client-side events and interactions
- Requires server-side infrastructure and processing capabilities
Conclusion
Each tracking approach has its strengths and weaknesses, and the choice depends on factors such as the desired level of tracking granularity, privacy considerations, integration requirements, and the specific needs of the business or application. A combination of client-side and server-side tracking methods can also be used to leverage the benefits of both approaches.