WSS
Studio StandardsRecommended

First-Party Server Tagging

Engineering data architectures that bypass third-party cookies using Server-Side tracking.

What is it?

Server-Side Tagging is a data collection architecture where the user’s browser sends analytics events directly to a first-party server (e.g., metrics.yourdomain.com). That server then processes, sanitizes, and forwards the data to third-party vendors (Google Analytics, Facebook, Mixpanel) server-to-server.

Why does it matter?

Client-side ad blockers, Safari’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP), and privacy extensions block third-party trackers, resulting in up to 30% data loss for marketers. Server-Side tracking bypasses these blockers because the requests go to your own first-party domain. Furthermore, it vastly improves security and privacy, as you can strip out PII (Personally Identifiable Information) before forwarding the data to Big Tech.

How to implement it

1. Server-Side Google Tag Manager (sGTM)

Deploy an sGTM container on a subdomain you control.

  1. The client-side code sends an event to https://metrics.yourdomain.com/collect.
  2. The sGTM container receives the event.
  3. The container sanitizes the IP address and strips URL parameters.
  4. The container dispatches the data to Google Analytics and Meta Conversions API.

Verification

  • Inspect network traffic on your site. All analytics requests must be routed to a subdomain of the site you are currently visiting, not directly to google-analytics.com or facebook.com.