Introducing Event Flow: a Server Side Tracking Tool

Introducing Event Flow: A Server Side Tracking Tool

Adam Ruaux

July 18, 2023

Reading time: 10 minutes

Are you using your data effectively?

We feel passionately about data and much of the work we do with our clients is around helping them utilise the data they have in a way that delivers the best results for them.

Sending the right conversion signals to media buying platforms (Google, Meta, etc) is a big part of this.

Have you ever thought about the impact of not just bidding to the easiest action to set up based on your website, but what actually makes the most sense based on your business goals?

Often businesses bid to events early in the funnel from which there are large drop off rates, cancellation rates, additional fees added etc that mean that the data they see in-platform does not accurately reflect their bottom line performance.

When we feed Google higher quality data however, we find better users and drive better results.

What is server-side tracking?

Server-side conversions are conversion events which are passed back to Google through an import process rather than being tracked in real-time in the browser, giving more flexibility with what can be tracked.

Also known as click conversions, offline conversions, or CAPI (Conversions API), server-side tracking is a method of capturing and reporting conversion events to marketing platforms without relying on client-side processes (i.e. a program/device that requests information or services from a server) within web browsers, mobile applications etc.

Instead of sending conversion data directly from the client-side, server-side tracking involves uploading this data to the marketing platform using alternative methods.

There are different approaches to accomplish this, including:

Scheduled batch uploads to an API
Near-real time passback via an application server, using tools like server-side GTM (Google Tag Manager) or the publisher APIs directly

What are the benefits of server-side tracking?

By utilizing server-side tracking methods (like Meta’s Conversions API or Google Ads’ Click Conversions and call conversions), businesses can expand their tracking capabilities to gather comprehensive conversion data and leverage more sophisticated optimisation approaches.

Server-side tracking offers several advantages over client-side and can be beneficial in various scenarios, including:

1. Physical Store Transactions

When transactions occur in physical stores rather than online. In some instances, server-side tracking allows you to capture and report these conversions accurately.

2. Enhanced Data Attachment

Server-side tracking enables you to attach additional data to conversion events that may not be readily available within the browser or app at the time of the event. For instance, you can include conversion values like modelled lifetime value (LTV).

3. Sensitive Data Attachment

Server-side tracking enables you to pass sensitive metadata – for example, product margins or internal user classifications – that you do not wish to expose to the user’s device (where it could be trivially accessed).

4. Complex Application Structures

In cases where implementing a standard client-side tracking library becomes challenging due to factors like multiple domains, cookie-related constraints, application performance or JavaScript considerations, server-side tracking may offer a more flexible async solution.

5. Conversions outside of the Application

Server-side tracking is likely required when you need to track conversions that do not occur during an end-user’s active interaction with an application. For example, tracking the qualification of a lead by a salesperson.

How can WeDiscover help?

Developing a custom system within your own infrastructure requires specific domain expertise, as well as a nuanced understanding of the interplay between various points of the conversion funnel and how feeding back specific data points can impact the performance of various paid media channels.

Being comprised of both data scientists and engineers and paid media experts, WeDiscover have helped many businesses understand the value of server-side tracking for them and assisted with its setup via our purpose-built service, Event Flow.

Our team is well-equipped to support you throughout the entire process, from technical consultations with your internal teams to delivering comprehensive in-house builds. We’ll ensure that your server-side tracking solution is optimised for your business and tailored specifically to your unique requirements.

For many businesses, the convenience and efficiency of outsourcing this integration and ongoing monitoring to a trusted third-party is intensely valuable. With Event Flow, you export conversion data in CSV or JSON format at a predefined frequency to a cloud storage provider and our automation platform takes it from there. It will manage the interactions with marketing platforms, and provide continuous monitoring and robust alerting systems. Our team will handle all necessary maintenance too.

With Event Flow, you’re gaining a holistic solution that simplifies server-side tracking and brings the focus for you off technology and back to optimisation and platform performance.

How does Event Flow work?

Setting up Event Flow is a relatively quick task, but we’ll want to make sure it makes sense for your business before we do.

The first thing we’ll do is schedule an initial consultation with one of our team members to discuss your business needs and goals and ensure the solution is suitable — there’s no need to over-engineer something that may be achieved with a less sophisticated client-side setup.

Below is some basic information to help you understand a little more about Event Flow.

What cloud storage sources do you support?

We currently support Google Cloud Storage and Amazon S3 as the source of conversion data or to pass any required logging data to. Should there be a requirement to implement an alternative input method – like Azure or an FTP server – we can also discuss timelines to support with this.

Which marketing destinations do you support?

Event Flow currently supports Google Ads Click Conversions and Search Ads 360 Offline Conversions. There are plans to implement a destination for Meta – so if that’s something you’d like to explore, still reach out to find out about timelines.

How frequently can we upload conversion data?

We can read and upload conversions every hour, multiple times a day, or once a day. There’s no reason why the process can’t be adapted to run more or less frequently, but if you require more frequent uploads than hourly, you may wish to explore other options for server-side tracking (i.e. directly from an application server).

What security/data privacy concerns are there?

Where possible, the process is designed to minimise the requirement to deal with PII and prevent WeDiscover from having to store it. Where it is required – such as for Meta uploads – we have stringent data protection policies in place that meet a high standard of security and conform to GDPR requirements. We have documentation on Privacy & Security here which covers these in detail, but we can also talk through any concerns or requirements that you have in this area on a call.

How much does it cost?

Whether you are an existing client or have never worked with us before, implementing Event Flow will cost the same, at £500/month.

This means that if you already work with us, we can help you implement Event Flow without the need to slow down on any other existing tech or media projects.

And if you don’t already work with us, it means you are able to get set up quickly, with minimal onboarding and without the need to tie yourself into any lengthy contracts or retainers.

Set up

Provided Event Flow is the most appropriate solution and you have the data required readily available, the process for your team will look like this:

Step 1: Cloud Storage Setup

To begin, we’ll ensure that you have a secure and convenient place to load your conversion data for us to retrieve. There are two options here:

Grant one of our service accounts limited access to a bucket on your existing cloud storage provider.
We can set up a dedicated bucket for you on one of our cloud storage providers and provide a service account for you to access

Step 2: Export Conversion Data

Once you’ve got a cloud storage destination set up for your conversion data, and our tool can access it, you’ll need to automate an export in a specified format and appropriate frequency. If needed, we can support you with this process. If you’re exporting from a data warehouse like Snowflake or BigQuery, scheduled exports to S3 or GCS are very straightforward.

Step 3: Receive Upload Logs [optional]

Even if you haven’t implemented server-side tracking in-house, you may want to receive some logs in your internal systems on information such as the quality of data you’re sending and the success of your uploads. If that is the case, we can provide you with structured data that goes back to the cloud storage bucket used in step 1.

Monitoring & alerting

We’ll provide you with access to a Slack channel, where you can be notified of any issues, along with access to a dedicated monitoring and status dashboard in Looker.

The Looker dashboard will contain information on the conversions received and uploaded to each platform, split by: account, conversion type, any custom labels you may wish to include etc.

It will show data on a temporal basis and monitor important rates – such as the proportion of conversions that are parseable, and the rejection rate by platforms.

Below is an example of a standard monitoring dashboard, however the reports are highly customisable to suit your needs. You can also schedule delivery of certain aspects of the reports to your email or Slack channel should you wish to.

By default, the Slack channel will receive an alert when we see that something isn’t working quite right. For example, if we haven’t received conversions when we expected to, or we’re seeing a high number of rejections from the marketing platforms. We’ll then communicate to you any incident response – such as an active investigation or resolution for the issue.

Reach out for a chat

If you want to learn more about Event Flow, how it works and if it might be for you, drop us a message here as we’d love to hear from you.

We also have more information on the full Event Flow product, set up, FAQs, a roadmap for future Event Flow updates and more on our Notion page here.

Even if you’re unsure if server-side tracking will be beneficial for your business, we’re always happy to offer a consultation.