Get started with signals gateway

This guide walks you through the steps needed to get a Meta Signals Gateway (SGW) up and running, create your first pipeline, and update your website.

Prerequisites

• A Meta Business account with access to a dataset (Pixel) if you plan to forward events to Meta.

• A Usercentrics Server-Side Tracking user account

The following are the key steps you have to take:

1. Create the signals gateway

2. Create the first pipeline

3. Set up a custom domain

4. Install the signals gateway pixel on your website

1. Create a signals gateway

1. Go to Usercentrics Server-Side Tracking, and sign in or create a free account if you don’t already have one.

2. Select Signals Gateways from the sidebar menu.

3. Click the Create Signals Gateway button.

   

4. Give the gateway a name, select your hosting location and create the gateway.

   

5. You will be redirected to the gateway details page where you have an overview and access information. It’s ready to use, but if this your first gateway, you should activate your SGW user.

Activate your signals gateway user

Important

If this is the first gateway you are creating with your user account in the selected hosting location, you will receive an email to activate your signals gateway user.

If this is not your first gateway, you can ignore this step and go here.

1. Click the Activate account button in the email you received.

2. Define a password for this account and confirm. This will be a separate login from your Usercentrics one.

3. You will be taken to the Signals Gateway hub interface, and you can proceed to create your first pipeline.

2. Create your first pipeline

1. Open your signals gateway and click Get Started.  

   

2. Select Signals Gateway pipeline.

   

3. Give it a name. Select Signals Gateway Pixel as data source and Meta as destination.

   

• If your website has a Meta pixel already, go here.

• If your website does not have a Meta pixel, go here.

Signals pixel setup with existing Meta Pixel

1. Name your signals pixel, and select Yes if your website has an existing Meta pixel.

   

2. Authenticate with your Meta Business account.

   

3. Select your business portfolio and click Continue.

   

4. Select the Events Manager dataset that should receive data from this pixel and click Continue.

5. You will be prompted to add the pixel code to your website. However, we recommend skipping over this step and first setup your custom domain — this way you will only have to edit your website’s code or GTM once. To be able to skip over this step, you will need to click Copy code so that the Continue button gets activated.

   

6. You will see the new pipeline in your pipelines list:

   

7. Move on to set up a custom domain for your gateway.

Signals pixel setup with no Meta pixel

1. If your website doesn’t have a Meta pixel, select No in this screen and click Continue.

   

2. You will be prompted to add the pixel code to your website. However, we recommend skipping over this step and first setup your custom domain — this way you will only have to edit your website’s code or GTM once. To skip over this step, click Copy code so that the Continue button gets activated.

   

3. You will be asked to setup Data Enhancement. Choose the data you’re most comfortable with (see example below), and click Continue.

   

4. You should see confirmation that the pixel was setup correctly, then click Continue.

   

5. Now you need to connect the pixel with a Meta dataset. Authenticate with your Meta Business account .

   

6. Select your business portfolio and click Continue.

   

7. Select the dataset that should receive data from this pixel and click Continue.

   

8. You will receive confirmation that the pipeline was updated with the destination. Click Done.

   

9. You should now move on to set up a custom domain for your gateway.

3. Set up a custom domain

Using a first‑party subdomain improves deliverability and durability of identifiers. Cookies can be set under the same domain as the website and thus improve their lifetime and consequently increase the attribution window.

To set up a custom domain, you can go through account settings or click the notice at the top of the interface. We’ll describe the steps to do it form the Account settings.

1. In Signals Gateway, go to Account settings → Data routing

   

2. Click Optimize.

   

3. Select a subdomain under your website where you would like to have your gateway hosted. Things to consider when selecting your subdomain:

   1. If your website is example.com then your gateway subdomain should be something like sgw.example.com.

   2. If you’re a Server Google Tag Manager user and already have a custom domain, make sure to choose a different one for signals gateway.

4. Take note of the subdomain you used and the default URL of the gateway (location highlighted below – note that this is an example and you should use the real information displayed in your signals gateway).

   

5. At your DNS provider, create a CNAME record. The name should be the subdomain you want to use and the target should be the default URL of the gateway (again remember that these values are only examples)

   

6. Once you have created the record in your DNS provider, go back to Signals Gateway and click “Continue” in the domain creation window. You should be able to proceed if everything is setup correctly

   

4. Install the signals gateway pixel

Now that you have a validated first-party domain, you can move on to installing the pixel on your website. There are several ways to do it:

1. Directly as code on the page

2. Through Google Tag Manager

3. Through Shopify

When you click on your signals pixel data source from your pipeline, a modal window opens. Select the Setup Guide section, and then your installation method.

Then you should follow the instructions in that window, depending on your chosen setup.

The following section describes how to set up the signals gateway using Google Tag Manager, the most common of the three scenarios.

4.1 How to set up signals gateway using Google Tag Manager

Implementing the signals gateway via Google Tag Manager (GTM) alongside your existing Meta pixel ensures your event data is properly routed and deduplicated. Follow these steps to configure your setup using the Meta-provided GTM template.

Prefer to learn visually? Benjamin from Loves Data has a step-by-step video walkthrough covering this exact setup.

Prerequisites

To integrate this setup with Usercentrics, you must ensure that your GTM tags respect user consent. In Google Tag Manager, you will need to configure your tag triggers so that the Meta pixel and signals gateway tags only fire when the user has granted the appropriate consent category (typically marketing or advertising consent) via your Usercentrics banner.

Step 1: Retrieve your signals gateway pixel settings

Locate the following values, which you will need for GTM:

• Signals Gateway Pixel ID

• Signals Gateway Pixel Host

• Signals Gateway Pixel Script URL

Step 2: Import the signals gateway pixel template

• Log in to your Google Tag Manager Workspace and navigate to Templates.

• In the Tag Templates section click Search Gallery.

• Search for “SignalsGateway”.

• Select “SignalsGateway Pixel by facebookincubator” and click Add to Workspace.

Step 3: Update Template Permissions

Crucial step

Do not skip this step, as failing to update permissions will cause the tag to throw an exception and block your events from firing correctly.

1. Click on the newly added “SignalsGateway Pixel” template to open the Template Editor.

2. Navigate to the Permissions tab.

3. Under Injected scripts, update the Allowed URL match patterns so that it exactly matches your signals gateway pixel script URL.

4. Click Save.

Step 4: Create an event ID variable for deduplication

Since you will be sending events from both the browser (Meta pixel) and the gateway, you must deduplicate the data using a shared event ID.

There are a couple of event ID templates available in the template gallery.

Step 5: Create your signals gateway tag

1. You will need to recreate your existing Meta pixel events using the new gateway template.

2. Note the event names and firing triggers for your existing Facebook pixel tags.

3. Go to Tags - New and select the imported “SignalsGateway Pixel” template.

4. Apply the exact same Event Name and Firing Triggers as your corresponding Meta pixel tag.

5. Input your Signals Gateway Pixel ID, Host, and Script URL.

   Troubleshooting Tip: Double-check your pixel ID carefully. Entering an incorrect pixel ID during this configuration step is a common cause of implementation errors and tracking failure.

6. Navigate to More Settings - Event ID and add the new {Event ID} variable you created in Step 4.

Step 6: Update Your Existing Meta Pixel Tag

To ensure deduplication works, your existing Meta pixel must send the exact same event ID as the new gateway tag:

1. Open your existing Meta pixel tag(s).

2. Navigate to More Settings - Event ID.

3. Add the {Event ID} variable as the value.

Step 7: Test and publish

1. Open GTM's Preview Mode to verify that your tags load correctly on your website.

2. Perform test events and confirm that both the client-side Meta tag and the Meta gateway tag are firing successfully without throwing exceptions.

3. Once confirmed, publish your GTM container.
   Note: It may take some time for DNS propagation to fully resolve and data to appear in your live dashboard.