Resources

Myth-Busting: Why Server-Side Tracking Will Not Restore Your Marketing Data Quality

July 21, 2022

Conversion disruption is degrading the quality of marketing data and dragging down campaign performance. Ad platforms cannot optimize, data is riddled with bias, and the wrong insights are being used to distribute budget. As these complexities facing ad tracking and performance marketing grow, teams are changing tact - pivoting tracking setups to incorporate newly available server-side solutions in the hope that this will restore visibility over conversion data.

The Ugly Truth:

While these solutions can be beneficial for data enrichment, load times, and privacy optimization (amongst other things) there is a widespread misconception that server-side tracking will help solve tracking prevention challenges.

The unfortunate reality is that server-side tracking solutions will often barely make a dent in resolving marketing analytic quality and accuracy issues. Here’s why:

Tracking prevention disruptions occur within a user’s browser. Even while popular server-side setups may ensure the last leg of the tracking journey is a server-to-server; most data points will still be sourced client-side. This makes these setups just as vulnerable to tracking preventions as the client-side setups we were used to.

Essentially, the reroute in place is too late in the journey for data to be captured.

The alternative you're faced with is to abandon any elements of our tracking setups that run client-side. Goodbye, GTM. Hello, waiting weeks (or months!) for developers to implement new tracking changes! This is leaving digital marketing teams with a tough trade off: Live with flawed and inaccurate data driving our decision-making, or, stop using the tools that enabled us to self-serve our own tracking needs and boosted our productivity.

The additional challenges with server-side solutions:

Complexity

Server-side tracking and tagging can be complex to implement and maintain, particularly for organizations that do not have a lot of technical expertise on staff.

Limited functionality

Server-side tracking and tagging often has limited functionality compared to client-side tracking, which can make it difficult for marketers to get the data they need to make informed decisions.

Latency

Server-side tracking and tagging can introduce latency into page loads, which can negatively impact the user experience.

Limited compatibility

Server-side tracking and tagging may not be compatible with certain devices, browsers, or other technologies, which can limit its usefulness for some marketers. Only platforms with server-to-server APIs (such as Google Analytics and Facebook) can be fully supported with server-side solutions. Other platforms, built for client-side collection only, may not be able to be used at all in this new server-side paradigm.

Scalability challenges

As the number of visitors to a website increases, the load on the server increases. This can cause issues with data processing, data storage and data analysis, especially in cases where real-time analytics is needed.

Increased IT overhead and maintenance

With marketing teams no longer able to completely self-service their own requests – the burden on IT teams will escalate, distracting them from other priorities. Server-side means adding servers, and all the associated costs of these. Hosting, scaling up for traffic surges, applying software updates, and other security concerns will be an additional burden for IT teams moving forward.

Unknown success

Once server-side solutions are implemented, teams will typically still be unable to track how effective these efforts were at resolving data quality issues. The number of variables in play (and option of just blaming poor performing campaigns) means these projects will be "completed" and then swept under the rug,

It goes without saying – while there is a time and place for server-side solutions, developing these capabilities to overcome data loss is not one of them.

RescueMetrics provides all the promised benefits of server-side, without the complexities or cost.


RescueMetrics is different to all other solutions in the market because it resolves the problem inside the browser itself. Our technology dynamically convert existing client-side setups into server-side data collection – engineered specifically to avoid any browser disruption, without new integrations required. With over 36 platforms supported, this will protect all tags and pixels from disruption - in the lowest overhead way possible.

This means:

  • The configuration of your existing MarTech tools can all be preserved - and all platforms can continue to be managed in the tools you know. RescueMetrics is compatible with the latest features of each platform and will remain so. 
  • Time saved with a low effort/simple implementation. No new education or ongoing management will be required from your IT team.
  • No additional privacy or compliance issues to worry about. RescueMetrics can automatically follow the existing policies in your tag or cookie management platform. We are 100% GDPR and CCPA compliant.
  • Marketing teams can continue with BAU – while having the right data to boost performance.

See the impact for yourself with a 30-day free trial (no credit card or commitment required)!

Related resources

No lengthy IT projects, maintenance, or workflow configuration required.

See results in a matter of days, after a 3-step set-up.