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Data is the driving force behind impactful digital marketing today. Websites and platforms gather web analytics data to offer personalized content, make recommendations, and identify and resolve performance issues. This tracking process has been around even before Google Analytics made its debut in 2005.
There are two primary types of tracking – server-side and client-side tracking. We'll explore their definitions, advantages, disadvantages, and implications for privacy.
This common form of tracking is triggered by the browser (the client). Each web interaction fires an event tracked by JavaScript code embedded in the website. These events can be anything from a page view to a link click. Client-side tracking can also create cookies, allowing the collection of more information like language settings, abandoned shopping carts, and perform other useful functions that provide a good user experience.
Server-side tracking also collects user data from the browser, but it comes from your web server or one managed on your behalf. Unlike client-side tracking, it's not easily interrupted and does not rely solely on cookies. This web server can imitate most client-side requests, capturing information like the user's IP address, browser type, operating system, and visited pages.
Client-side tracking offers deeper contextual insights into the user's device, including cookies, URL parameters, user agent, referrer, and IP address. It is traditionally cost-effective, easy to implement, and widely used.
Server-side tracking is more accurate, reliable, faster, and less prone to interruption or data loss, making it ideal for conversion-oriented websites. It's also less affected by ad blockers, Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP), and iOS14+ updates, thus providing more reliable web analytics.
In 2023, client-side tracking has noteworthy limitations. Tracking preventions like ad blockers can restrict Javascript and cookies, leading to incomplete tracking of sessions or conversions. Its effectiveness varies with traffic geography, demographic, and digital fluency. Solely relying on this tracking approach potentially results in up to 30% missing analytics data.
Traditional server-side tracking is technically demanding to configure and implement. Since your web server has different access to information in the browser, you need to architect imitation client-side requests for all the events you wish to capture. Additionally, measuring the success of your own implementation can be challenging, and you need to ensure you're abiding by local laws and respecting users' privacy settings.
Equally, while server-side tracking can be less prone to browser disruptions, such as by adblock technology, and may ensure the last leg of the tracking journey is a server-to-server; most data points will still be sourced client-side.
This means standard set-ups, most commonly deployed via Google Tag Manager, can be just as vulnerable to data loss as the client-side setups we’re used to.
The importance of privacy cannot be overstated. All web tracking approaches are regulated by privacy legislation. In the EU, GDPR mandates businesses to obtain explicit user consent before collecting personal data. Similarly, in the US, CCPA requires businesses to let users opt out of the sale of their personal information. Whether looking at a platform, managed service or DIY approach you should be aware of these laws, collecting data transparently and responsibly.
Given the evolving web analytics landscape a hybrid model integrating both server-side and client-side tracking is the most robust solution. Without a future-proofed solution, essential analytics events like conversions and revenue are subject to growing discrepancies.
At RescueMetrics, we’ve built the best of both worlds. Our hybrid server-side tool, dynamically converts client-side tracking to server-side. By using RescueMetrics, you can boost your conversions and data flow by up to 30% across your entire MarTech stack - while removing the disruptions that will drive further discrepancies
Contact us today to simplify your server-side tracking with RescueMetrics!
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The "cookie apocalypse" is challenging legal compliance, consumer trust and the effectiveness of MarTech. Cookie banners offer a convenient solution… if you can tick all the boxes.
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What do you get when you put two marketing data and analytics Jedis on a call together? So. Many. Insights. Alex Langshur and Phil Zohrab chat measurement models, AI Attribution, signal loss and more. We have summarized the most valuable takeaways.
What do you get when you put two marketing data and analytics Jedis on a call together? So. Many. Insights. Alex Langshur and Phil Zohrab chat measurement models, AI Attribution, signal loss and more. We have summarized the most valuable takeaways.
Meetup installed RescueMetrics in April 2022, and the digital marketing team has been breaking campaign performance records ever since.
Meetup installed RescueMetrics in April 2022, and the digital marketing team has been breaking campaign performance records ever since.
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