Server-side tracking, set up properly.

Server-side tracking sends your website’s conversion events through a server you control, usually on a subdomain of your own site, and from there to the ad platforms’ APIs. Browser-only tracking relies on scripts running in each visitor’s browser, which ad blockers and browser privacy features can stop.

If you spend a meaningful amount on Meta, Google or TikTok and rely on them to optimise towards sales or leads, it’s usually worth it. If you’re just starting out, or a platform’s own integration already sends server events for you (for example on Shopify), a lighter set-up may be enough. We’ll tell you which.

It depends on your audience’s browsers, devices and blockers, so it isn’t a magic number. As published benchmarks: Meta reports a 13% improvement in cost per acquisition on average for advertisers who add the Conversions API to the Pixel, and Google reports median conversion uplifts of about 5% on Search and 17% on YouTube from enhanced conversions. Meta shows your own uplift in Events Manager.

No, and it shouldn’t. UK rules on cookies and personal data apply however the data travels. We build the set-up so that nothing is sent to ad platforms for people who decline cookies, and Consent Mode passes each person’s choice on to Google.

It’s Meta’s way of receiving conversion events directly from a server rather than only from the pixel in the browser. Run alongside the pixel, with a shared event ID so Meta counts each conversion once, it gives Meta a more complete picture to optimise from.

It’s Microsoft Advertising’s server-side connection: conversions are sent from your server straight to Microsoft, alongside the UET tag in the browser. With a shared event ID Microsoft counts each conversion once, and hashed email or phone details help it match more of them, so Bing, Copilot and the rest of Microsoft’s network optimise from more complete data. We set it up through server-side Google Tag Manager, consent-aware like the rest of your tracking.

When the browser pixel and the server both send the same conversion, the platform needs to know they’re one event, not two. Both send the same event ID, and the platform keeps one. Without it, conversions are double-counted and bidding goes wrong.

It can recover some of what browser-only tracking loses, because events go through your own subdomain and straight to the platforms’ APIs. It won’t recover everything, and it only applies to people who have accepted cookies.

Run your site through our free tracking checker. It shows which tags you run, what fires before cookie consent, whether Consent Mode v2 and ad click IDs work, and whether there are signs of server-side tracking already.

Yes: hosting, updates and checks after site changes. We document everything, and monitoring after site changes is included for management clients.

A lighter option that serves Google’s tags from your own domain through a content delivery network such as Cloudflare, without running a separate tracking server. For some sites it’s enough on its own; for others, it sits alongside a full server-side set-up. We’ll recommend whichever fits.

It’s an add-on. Set-up starts from £250 for a lead-generation site and £450 for an online shop, as a fixed price confirmed once we’ve seen your current tracking. It’s free for management clients spending £5,000 or more a month. Hosting is paid at cost, straight to the provider: Stape’s free plan covers most small sites, with paid plans for busier ones.

Yes. If we manage your ads, building or fixing your core tracking is included: Google Tag Manager, GA4 key events, conversion tracking, Google enhanced conversions, Consent Mode, and the Meta Conversions API through your platform’s own integration where one exists (Shopify’s, for example). The add-on is the full server-side set-up on your own subdomain.

Yes. It can be a standalone project. We build it, test it, document it and hand it over, so your current team keeps the benefit.