Google Tag Manager Server-side tagging tutorial with Google Analytics 4

[@DavideGhezzi-n9n]

l'unico video che spiega in modo chiaro ed esaustivo il server side tagging

[@michaelcharters]

This is so helpful! Your technical and teaching abilities are excellent. Thank you for putting this training together for us.

[@devonrd]

This is the ONLY video that exactly was what I needed! Everything fully explained in a way that is understandable. Thank you a million times.

[@mahmoudmustafa579]

This what I pay the internet for!! Thank you Julius!

[@muthukrishnanmani46]

Thanks for the session. It's very helpful and you've explained most concepts. I got this SST thing now, will explore more 👍

[@AliSolanki]

Hey! Really loved the video. Howevervat 17:52 the Google Analytics Configuration Tag has now changed to Google Tag and there is no option for "send to server container". How do I fix this and send data to server container?

[@AliSolanki]

Ahh solved it: you've to go over to the tag configuration for Google Tag (previously Google Analytics Configuration Tag) and add configuration settings -> configuration parameter -> server_container_url and add your server url there

[@vytautasdrebulis4862]

Jsut amazing video. Managed to set up everything with your tutorial without any issues. Keep up the good work

[@awakenthegreatnesswithin]

Still using it? How’s it going?

[@phillmaddickotter]

Are you being charged for Google Cloud use?

[@specialist101]

Voor de Nederlanders die dit kijken. In Nederland heb je ook een partij die hosting en implementatie aanbied voor SST, namelijk TAGGRS. Dit is in tegenstelling tot Google Cloud wel een stuk goedkoper (25 tot 65 per maand). Je kunt zelfs een gratis account aanmaken.

[@RuiAlbertoMaia]

Thank you verry much. ! You are an expert on Google tag manager... Explanation Excellent, Accurancy Excellent... I've been seting my google tag manager as you speak ! it 100% accurate !

[@mattsfraser]

Julius, this was very helpful as I was pulling my hair out trying to figure it out. I don't like the way that Google creates an automatic project for you so I am going to try to set it up manually.

[@anondontwant]

Thanks very much for this Julius. Do you recommend sending server-side and browser events to the same GA4 property? If so is there a deduplication available, like with Facebook CAPI? Or should you just use one or the other?

[@KushGupta-p4g]

Your videos are helpful for so many of us. Thank you.

[@dawidp749]

About 16:30 or something like that. Don’t ignore this error, this error just says that no client grabbed this data which is good as they should grab only Post requests with some specified json payload

thank you very much Julius for this video. Always great quality videos tutorials and courses. You are my Obi-wan Kenobi of Tracking 💪

[@thiagoushikoshi697]

Really awesome content, Julius! Can you recommend me any videos/articles addressing GTM client and the benefits of using it? You mentioned it briefly in 14:50 . Thanks!

[@AnalyticsMania]

I talk about clients in my GTM course www.analyticsmania.com/courses/intermediate-google-tag-manager-course/

[@BaljitSingh-bu9xp]

Great Video!! Thanks for providing the information....:)

[@EdwardBailey-g9p]

Thanks so much for this, I was trying to set up SS tracking for months before I came across this, you're legend! Im having some issues with the conversion source data, previously I could split my conversions out via source (Google cpc, FB ads etc), but since I added SS tracking all my conversion events come through with a source of not set, have you seen this before or have any ideas what I did wrong? Thanks so much

[@Shoaibistan]

Thank you for the video! While we can easily check GA4 hits in the console when implementing client-side tracking, how can we debug server-side hits using console logs?

[@StinaLundgren]

Please help me, I can't see GA4 configuration anymore and can not add "send to server container" why??

[@Maxtunes2590]

Do i need to set CORS on google cloud to avoid having issues ?

[@LubiousCo]

Great content as always. Thanks for the effort and time you put into this.

[@_L_i_f_e_M_o_m_e_n_t_s]

Wonderful explanation.

[@MonaWang-dp1uu]

Thank you for this good vedio. As you know, sGTM doesn't support google signals in GA4 now. But we hope GA4 implementation could be delployed in server side to improve website performance and also need to use google signal function in the marketing strategy. Do you know how to enable google signals with the implementation of GA4 in sGTM?

[@levipadre]

Hi, thank you for the great video. Just one question about it. Should I just replace the old GTM ID with the new server-side version GTM ID?

[@LorenzoNovia]

Hello, in my App Engine > custom domains, after I follow the process (and verified that all the DNS are correct) I do not see al the A and AAAA record, but only the CNAME record. Then when I start the preview, after setting my subdomain in admin and GA configuration variable, I get a 404. Any suggestion? thank you

[@GorgonPalace]

Hi, thanks for sharing your knowledge. I was actually using your tutorial to connect my sGTM with Google server, but at last stage I got stuck. When I want to send GA4 page_view to server, my request gets blocked by CORS. I have also created subdomain, so I am sending from it to Google server. I found no tutorial, blog post, anything about it. I also couldn't find such setup in Google Cloud. Can you help? Thanks

[@victorkimura1]

Thank you for that video. Do you have a tutorial on the Google Tag Manager Web Container client type?

[@AnalyticsMania]

Yes, check my channel

[@adsoptimering1484]

Will server side tracking help me get the data, thats otherwise lost, when users reject cookies. Such as events data attributed to marketing channels?

[@JosianneLThessereault]

Thank you for this video, it's very helpful. I have a few questions regarding GCP: - Is the testing environment sufficient for a website that receives little traffic, or eventually it will imperatively need to be upgraded to flexible environment? - Can we host multiple projects on a server, or is it 1 website : 1 (or 2-3) server? - And finally, I do know it is recommended to have around 3 servers per project, is this really necessary? Thank you again for this content, it was clear and straight to the point.

[@AnalyticsMania]

1. No 2. You can use the same server for multiple websites because you can connect multiple custom domains to the same App engine project 3. Have at least two. If one fails, the other will help (to some extent). 3 servers are better, but on my blog, I use two (I get ~100k visitors a month, no major spikes in traffic)

[@VolodymyrKreshchenko]

Hmm, that's interesting. Thanks for explaining. So I can use server-side instead of web GA4 pixel but I still need web GTM to cover all other pixels that do not support server-side tech, right?

[@litoid]

Minute 38, i did paste the new custom domain server container URL. BUT... at 38:46... in web container GA4 config... things have changed. I no longer see this "Send to server container" option anymore. So what has to be done here to send events from web container to server container? inside server container there's no tag for google analytics 4 events... and i dont want to use custom code for each event... any ideas?

[@Yas9in]

Thank you so much for your video. But I'm honestly a little confused. Does this setup actually increase tagging efficiency and allow for better ad optimisation and analytics insight? E.g; can we set up Facebook CAPI and other similar tools? Or is there a different setup (e.g a developer harcoding events on browser side) that is better than this solution?

[@Yas9in]

Seems to me tagging won't actually be any better if everything going to the server is just a forwarded version of stuff coming from client side container

[@dmitrypodoleev6992]

Hi, I am thinking about this too. If anything is blocked from the client side because of ad blockers for example, how sGTM will get that info? What's the sense of sGTM then.

[@ChristophFelber-r8r]

technically, I am wondering why the proxiing is an issue - wouldnt it even be good from a privacy point of view, as all requests will come from one single IP address (cloudflares)?

[@jackkeith1783]

Do I need to setup a SGTM for each domain I have in my account?

[@Mukirawat310]

yes

[@TangoDelta42]

Important to know, that the client side and the server side GTM are two different accounts. It is not possible to use the server side GTM for both jobs as it cannot generate a GTM.js. If you want the GTM.js within your domain, you can you can use the server side GTM as proxy but you must use the ID of the client side account in the settings of the server side account. Took me some time to figure it out 😂

[@Afzalhanif7]

Thank you so much. Really helpful video.

[@thenickbosch]

So with this setup could you build out an exploration report of transaction IDs for ecom purchases with IP address as well?

[@AnalyticsMania]

That would go against google's terms of service. plus, you would exceed GA4's cardinality limits if you get more than 500 unique IP addresses in a day

[@lemonizegmbh8308]

Very interesting topic! Could you please also do a video on the new transformations tab in the sGTM container? Would be very helpful to get some expert insights and recommendations on what parameters should be removed or what parameters definitely have to stay in order to ensure proper tracking in GA4.

[@AnalyticsMania]

I plan to include this in my intermediate/advanced GTM course

[@equiposInn]

Hi, thanks for your video. I have a question, I have already connected Google Analytics with my website, if I do the configuration you are talking sending events through Google Tag Manager (server), should I disconnect Google Analytics and my website? , If I keep that connection may be that Google Analytics receives events duplicated, right?

[@learnwithtoriqul]

Thanks for sharing this video

[@FunkenFlug-t3z]

Can I track Adsense revenues using a UTM through Google Tag Manager Server Side?

[@anahitkhachatryan1648]

This was a lot!)) Thank you!

[@DoomCatcher]

Very useful video, however at @34:25 I am using google search console and I only have the option to select the root domain even though I've also added the subdomain to google search console, what do I do?

[@michelluarasi]

Hi there, what is the best way to send data from the proxyGTM to sGTM without the GA4 config? We want to avoid loading that script and just forward a few custom events. Thanks!

[@DiogoGaia-s5y]

How can I set this up without the Google Analytics configuration tag (now Google tag)?

[@agung_laksana]

Hi Julius, on minute 17:52 it seems that you tick 2 boxes in the GA4 Configuration. will it make double/duplicate events recorded on GA4 dashboard eventually? when GA4 event header_click is triggered, I assume it will send to 2 events (duplicate) 1. Directly from Web Container -> GA4 Server (because of the first tick box) 2. From Web Container -> Server Container -> GA4 Server (because of the second tick box) I assume if we want to use server side, then I we only need the second tick box (Send to server container) only. Thank you very much for another helpful video. You are a legend. Thank you

[@MartinBatema]

Do I need a web container for this to work? And how do I connect these with eachother?

[@Bartopia_app]

Your amazing this has been so helpful!

[@KyouKo-x7g]

THX for teaching, good explaining, I want to ask , how cant I do both web and server tracking ?? I found that after setting server container url, all events go to the server container url, and dont go to the original ga url, but I want to use both, do you know how to do that ???

[@antonith5586]

Thank you for the video, I have some doubts before implementing server sider gtm in my website. 1. Does GTM SS provide load balancer? 2. If my GTM SS stopped but my website still send events will the event be lost or it will be received back when GTM SS is back?

[@ThemeManiac187]

Hey Julius, how can somebody setup gtm ss with 2 different ga4 properties?

[@Lennardwil]

Thanks for the good Video it helps a lot. I have one question. Forwarding information from google Products will not be the problem since we have tag templates available. But lets assume we have some third party tool which is build in with an custom html tag in the client side GTM. I mean I could send the Data I need for example with the GTM Tag. For example price and product id. But how do I proceed on the server side GTM with these information, since there is no tag option to send the information via a custom html. Do we have to wait for other companies to create server side tag options? How do we proceeed with other advertisers where there is a template in GTM client but not server side?

[@AnalyticsMania]

You would need to write a Client (this requires JavaScript knowledge and Sandbox JS) to parse that data If you have a provider that does not support SGTM yet, you need to wait until they offer such option. You can also investigate "Data tag" and "Data client" by Stape

[@ad-boost-leads]

Thanks for the videos. Really useful

[@francoisterzian2713]

unfortunlatly after some hours trying to fix it... I don't have the box to select "send to server container" in GA4 customer side ...

[@AnalyticsMania]

Read the blog post in the description of the video

[@Godesokker]

I cant find there I need to copy the url in ga4?

[@vanessabonifaz4442]

Hello! Thank you for your video! I've been getting the same error after I've implemented this configuration on two websites now, idk if you could help me out. It's an anomaly detection alert in GA4 (under "Reports snapshot"). It detects a "drop in users" on the date I've implemented GTM Server Side and it drops the users down to 1 or 0 users, which I find extremely odd since the average number of users for these websites has been about 60K a day, before implementing GTM Server Side. Please let me know if you've seen this before and if you know how I could fix it. Thanks!

[@AntónioMorais-j3l]

Good explanation. For some reason when I change the URL in the server container and I try to access it in preview mode i get this error: Error: Page not found The requested URL was not found on this server. I tested with the original URL that is generates by Google cloud and it worked. Any ideas why this could happen?. Thank you

[@atlibjarna]

I had the same problem. In the Google Cloud Console, I had to open "Cloud Run", then open both servers (tagging and preview), click "Security" and select "Allow unauthenticated invocations". Initially, this actually triggered an error related to an "Organization Policy" for me, that I had to take care of first. But after selecting "Allow unauthenticated invocations", I was able to Preview successfully using my custom domain.

[@Miguelote94]

I have the same error. Did you solve it?

[@summusmarketing6510]

Hi! In 2024, the GA4 event tag does not have the "send to server-side container" option anymore. Could you tell me what has changed in the process?

[@AnalyticsMania]

My intermediate/advanced GTM course is updated with new instructions

[@phillmaddickotter]

So with new SST - will we all now incur additional cost from Google Cloud services?

[@AnalyticsMania]

yes. From Google Cloud or another provider where you host your SGTM server

[@OtterLabs]

@@AnalyticsMania - Interesting. So something to factor in with clients then.

[@mazhermahmood6672]

Beautiful explanation!!

[@HelamanOliveira-y2t]

Is there a way to use the same server-side for diferente websites and than configure a client and tag of GA4 for each website on the same server container?

[@AnalyticsMania]

Yes, but it's more complicated to explain in a comment. I explain that in my intermediate/advanced GTM course

[@KS-fz7hh]

For me only page view is forwarded for all other events it just says it was not triggered even though they show up on the summary tag of the debug mode.

[@DaleStrickland]

Fantastic video, thank you. My question-I already have a client-side GTM setup (via standard GTM setup) that I'm trying to migrate as much as possible to SGTM to improve website performance. Do you have content on what elements need to stay on the website and what elements can be moved to the server container? e.g. - Tags/Triggers - Pixels/Tracking Codes - GA4 Custom Events - Click Tracking + Conversion Tracking based on page views/events

[@AnalyticsMania]

This is up to you and your skills. I teach a lot more about SGTM in my course www.analyticsmania.com/courses/intermediate-google-tag-manager-course/

[@DaleStrickland]

@@AnalyticsMania Thank you. Did a bit of digging and it looks like many of my items can be moved to the server

[@Murtaza010]

"Send to server container" option is not available in my GA4 tag settings. The GA4 tag now uses Google Tag.

[@AntónioMorais-j3l]

You can create a variable with the URL server and the use it in the GA4 tag.

[@quadrawellness]

@@AntónioMorais-j3l Okay, got it. Thanks.

[@לוחמים_כלכליים-מבית_קלימבה]

How to learn it deeply?

[@NAYANPATIL-ri5ul]

can anyone help me with gtm is that releated to field of data engineer

[@pinklabprodutosdigitais]

hi Julius, amazing content as always, thank you. I have a challenge here with a client who has over 200 domains from which a GTM (both web and server) will receive events. They are all very similar, but come from different domains. In this case, can we use the original Google Cloud URL instead of creating more than 200 hundred custom subdomains and pointing each one to the server URL? I really apreciate if you can answer. Thanks!

[@AnalyticsMania]

No

[@anshidofficial]

Hi Julius, just one question, Do we need to set up a separate property in GA4 for server data? Also, How do I customize the event data received from client slide GA4 in the server-side GA4?

[@AnalyticsMania]

1. No 2. In the GA4 tag in the SGTM container

[@anshidofficial]

@@AnalyticsMania Thank you Julius ❤️ Finally, Do we need to create seperate tags in SGTM container to send futher to GA 4 from the tags/events recieved from the GA4 client What i meant is, i havent seen any tags fired in sgtm container while sending events from client side, only tag fired is GA 4 configuration tags along with variables So if i am not wrong, we need to create tags using this data and need to send again to GA4

[@zakariaelou]

So don’t we need a cookies banner for consent to track first party server side data?

[@AnalyticsMania]

You do

[@davideghz]

il video definitivo!

[@marciosantos7480]

very helpful thank you

[@utopiankreations]

Can we place all SGTM in one Cloud Server to offset costs? Each cloud server will be roughly 40 - 120 per month correct? My domains are niche specific with mid level traffic. Could I place all on one cloud server? My confusion lies in the cost benefit here cause server side is very helpful when you do the custom domain so it registers as 1st party, not 3rd. But that would mean minimum of $40 x 3 instances = $120 per domain. Which could be very costly indeed. Just trying to figure out if its worth the $$$ Thank you kindly for your very informative videos. I got everything set up, now just pending shell activation. haha but then realized toward the end of your video that it may be very costly indeed haha

[@AnalyticsMania]

You can map several subdomains/domains to same app engine, thus you can use the same setup for multiple websites. All in 1st party context.

[@utopiankreations]

@@AnalyticsMania do you have any tutorials for that? If I can get that locked down I think I can make the budget feasible. Thank you kindly for your detailed tutorials. I am learning a ton!

[@JillianDcrews]

Hello ! Thank you for your precious help but Google tag replace GA4 in Google Tag manager since few days, is it possible to have an update of this server side by side tuto specially for facebook ads... You will save my life ^^

[@AnalyticsMania]

Nothing changed except the server_container_url parameter that you must now use in your GA4 tags

[@JillianDcrews]

Ok I will try thank for your quick reply !@@AnalyticsMania

[@JillianDcrews]

In GA4 tags" You mean in GA4 event tag ? @@AnalyticsMania

[@scaryviking8657]

You might want to update your video: Once you have automatically provisioned your tagging server, Google Cloud no longer creates an App project for you, like you show in your video. So you can no longer access "Custom Domains" under "App Engine" --> "Settings", like you do @ 33:34 Please let me know if you have a solution for this. I have tried configuring an App project myself, but it doesn't seem to work.

[@AnalyticsMania]

Currently, I am putting 100% of my time to update videos in my paid courses. The updated server-side tagging content is coming soon to my intermediate/advanced GTM course www.analyticsmania.com/courses/intermediate-google-tag-manager-course/

[@leonhartje731]

Do you Know, how to mapping Item Arrays die GA4. Some Shops does Not have a GA4 recommendet DataLayer.

[@AnalyticsMania]

If they have GA3 data layer, GA4 supports that. If those shops have a different data layer - then either ask a developer to implement the correct DL, or you will need to learn how to write JavaScript and then build the correct structure yourself (which is the most time-consuming option if you don't have coding experience)

[@leonhartje731]

@@AnalyticsMania okay akd where I have to Insert the Script in the Tag Manager? Is the Code the value of the items Part in The Event Tag? So items = The Javascript Code ass a variable value = value varianle Currency = cur variable

[@AnalyticsMania]

Yes, items will have to be a custom JS variable that outputs the correct data structure

[@leonhartje731]

@@AnalyticsMania okay I have to put it on the Position, where normaly the Item variable is?

[@AnalyticsMania]

I don't understand the question. You need to create a variable that returns the list of products. Explaining the details of this is complicated. This is out of scope of comments under a video.

[@bgmibrutualfrage9443]

Very informative

[@isammatragi]

No way to add Google configuration anymore; only send events! so this is obsolete

[@atlibjarna]

Thanks!

[@atlibjarna]

Just trying out the "super thanks" feature, and thought this video definitely deserved it! But I'll rather support your work properly with buying one of your courses later, once I finish setting things up. Keep up the good work! 🙏

[@SaurabhSrivastava-i1q]

This is not entirely useful as the brave browser and other ad-blockers will block the scripts all together making the whole point of server side useless.

[@AnalyticsMania]

Unless you proxy things like GTM or GA4 through your own domain/subdomain

[@SaurabhSrivastava-i1q]

@@AnalyticsMania Do you have any tutorial on that?

[@yousifbodagh2113]

It doesn’t happen on the browser. It happens on the server.

[@SaurabhSrivastava-i1q]

@@yousifbodagh2113 Nope. The client side is loaded on the browser which is blocked 2 levels deep. You can have a proxy domain for your googletag script @analyticsmania said but it contains a gtag script within which is then blocked as well. So no. It's not useful anymore. Just a waste of server cost.

[@theduck17]

​@@AnalyticsMania ad blockers (ublock origin and ghostery) are still blocking web GTM from loading with a custom domain. Brave doesn't, but even with a custom loader I can't get web GTM to load, so ss GTM doesn't get what it needs to work correctly