With third-party cookie restrictions on the rise, Shopify store owners will be able to rely less and less on data from traditional browser-based tracking methods.
Fortunately, there’s a more accurate, privacy-conscious alternative available: server-side tracking (SST). This method routes events through your own server before sending them to third-party marketing and analytics platforms. It enables more reliable data collection and more accurate conversion tracking.
In this guide, we’ll explain how server-side tracking works for Shopify, the benefits it offers over client-side methods, and how to set it up to gather accurate data in line with data privacy laws.
Key takeaways
- Server-side tracking for Shopify routes events through your own server before sending them to analytics and ad platforms, making data collection more reliable and less vulnerable to browser restrictions.
- SST enables more complete customer journey tracking by capturing events across multiple channels and sessions without relying on third-party cookies.
- By reducing client-side scripts, server-side tracking speeds up website performance, which benefits both user experience and search rankings.
- SST supports data privacy compliance by giving merchants control over what data is collected, stored, and shared, especially when powered by an out-of-the-box solution like Usercentrics.
- Implementing server-side tracking involves selecting the right server environment, connecting consent management tools, and configuring event flows to create a consistent, high-quality data pipeline for marketing and analytics.
Why should you implement server-side tracking for your Shopify store?
Server-side tracking enables you to capture events on a server rather than in your customer’s browser.
With Shopify, this usually means routing data through Shopify’s servers or a server you control, such as a Google Tag Manager server container, before sending it to the marketing analytics platforms you use.
Take a look at some of the benefits of server-side tracking, from greater control over the valuable customer behavior data you collect, to improved website performance.
More reliable data collection
One of the primary advantages of server-side tracking is that it gives you a more complete and reliable picture of customer behavior.
Because SST collects data directly through your server rather than the shopper’s browser, it isn’t as vulnerable to ad blockers, browser restrictions, or privacy-enforcing tools.
That means you can capture the events that happen on your Shopify store and across your chosen marketing channels with greater accuracy, while still respecting privacy preferences and regulatory requirements.
Improved attribution accuracy
Third-party cookies can have a short shelf life, and any important customer actions that happen outside of a cookie’s lifespan can go untracked. This can lead to gaps in attribution and hinder your ability to serve personalized marketing experiences to your customers.
But with server-side setups, you can set and manage first-party cookies via your server, keeping identifiers intact for longer and giving you a more consistent record of how shoppers interact with your store over time.
Better website performance
When multiple client-side trackers run in a customer’s browser, page load times increase, and the overall speed of your website can be affected. A slow website can frustrate shoppers and negatively impact your search engine rankings.
Server-side tracking reduces the number of scripts and network requests required on the customer’s side, resulting in the faster, smoother browsing experience favored by buyers and search engines.
Data privacy compliance
Server-side tracking gives you more control over what data is collected, how it’s stored, and which third parties receive it (and in what format.) That control is essential for meeting the stringent requirements of data privacy laws like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).
Handling data on your server helps you to apply data minimization and anonymization principles by giving you the opportunity to strip out or obfuscate any unnecessary or sensitive information you don’t need before it’s shared.
Data minimization is made even easier when you use a consent management platform like Usercentrics CMP. You can better ensure that you only send data to analytics and advertising platforms from the users who have given their consent.
How to set up server-side tracking in Shopify in 5 steps
Setting up server-side tracking can feel daunting if you’ve never done it before. We’ve broken up the implementation process into clear, manageable steps so you can start capturing reliable, privacy-compliant data from your Shopify store right away.
1. Choose your server environment
First you need to decide where your tracking server will live. Your server environment is the infrastructure that processes and sends tracking data to platforms like Google Analytics 4 (GA4), Meta, or TikTok Ads.
Many Shopify merchants choose the Google Tag Manager (GTM) server container. It is hosted on Google Cloud and integrates easily with existing GTM setups. Other popular options include Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure.
The right choice depends on your level of technical expertise, budget, and need for customization. It’s always best to opt for an environment that’s secure, scalable, and supports the tools that you already have in your martech stack.
2. Select your server-side tracking tools
Once your server environment is in place, the next step is to choose the server-side tracking tools that will handle your data collection and event forwarding. These tools act as the bridges among your Shopify store, your server, and the platforms that receive the data.
Google’s Server-side Tag Manager (sGTM), Meta Conversions API, and GA4 are all popular choices here. Many merchants also connect TikTok Events API or Pinterest Conversion API.
The tools you select should integrate with your existing martech stack, support the events you want to track, and offer reliable integrations with Shopify.
3. Connect with your CMP to meet privacy compliance requirements
Many privacy regulations, like the GDPR, require you to collect and process personal data only with valid user consent.
When integrated with server-side tracking, a CMP acts as a gatekeeper. It permits only data from users who have opted in to pass through your server environment to analytics or ad platforms. This function reduces your risk of noncompliance and builds trust with your customers.
Usercentrics CMP is particularly effective here, because it offers out-of-the-box support for GA4, Meta, and Google Ads. It automates the enforcement of consent preferences across all connected tools, helping to keep your tracking both accurate and privacy-compliant, without the need for a lot of technical expertise.
4. Capture events from Shopify via webhooks or custom scripts
With your server environment and tracking tools in place, the next step is to feed them accurate event data from your Shopify store. You can do so using Shopify webhooks or custom scripts.
Webhooks automatically send data to your server when specific events occur. For example, when a customer places an order, updates their cart, or signs up for your newsletter. Custom scripts, on the other hand, let you define and capture on-site actions that aren’t covered by Shopify’s native webhooks, like video plays, for instance.
Combining both of these tracking methods gives you a full view of user activity, enabling more precise attribution and richer insights for your marketing strategies.
5. Configure your server tags
The final step is to configure your server tags so the information reaches the right platforms.
In a Google Server-side Tag Manager setup, this means creating tags for each destination (such as GA4, Meta Conversions API, or TikTok Events API) and mapping the incoming event data to the correct parameters.
On AWS or Microsoft Azure, you’ll follow a similar process, but you may have more flexibility to customize how events are processed, enriched, or filtered before they’re sent. You may want this flexibility if you have complex attribution models or unique reporting requirements.
When these processes take place on your chosen server, you’re able to clean, enrich, or standardize the data before sending it on to analytics tools. These steps not only improve data quality but also help to ensure consistent formatting across platforms, reducing reporting discrepancies.
Common roadblocks to implementing Shopify server-side tracking
From technical hurdles to data flow hiccups, several factors can complicate Shopify server-side tracking. Below, we’ll cover the challenges merchants most often face, along with proven strategies to help you address them.
Lack of native support in Shopify
Shopify unfortunately doesn’t offer any built-in server-side tracking features that work seamlessly across all marketing and analytics tools.
Merchants often have to piece together a solution using sGTM, custom scripts, and/or third-party apps. The process can be complex, especially if you’re trying to unify data flows from multiple ad platforms, analytics tools, and in-store systems.
The solution: Choose a server environment and tracking setup that can integrate widely and scale with your needs. That way, you can bridge any gaps with Shopify and create a consistent, accurate data pipeline across all your marketing channels.
Attribution and tracking inconsistencies
Even with server-side tracking in place, you may run into attribution issues if events aren’t configured consistently across platforms.
Common causes include mismatched event names, incorrect parameter mapping, and discrepancies between Shopify’s order data and what’s sent to your tracking server. These errors can cause analytics platforms to show different conversion numbers for the same period.
The solution: Maintain a clear, documented event taxonomy and test every event thoroughly before going live. Regular audits of your server tag configurations will help all platforms receive the same data, correctly formatted.
Syncing consent choices with tracking
When you implement server-side tracking on Shopify, one of the main compliance challenges is ensuring that only data from users who have given valid consent is processed and sent to third parties.
If your CMP isn’t properly integrated with your server environment, you risk collecting and forwarding data that your customers haven’t consented to sharing.
The solution: Integrate your CMP directly with your server-side setup so it can act as a gatekeeper. For example, Usercentrics CMP enables enforcing consent rules automatically, so each event is checked before it leaves your server. This helps keep your tracking privacy-compliant without sacrificing accuracy.
Optimize marketing performance for your Shopify store while achieving privacy compliance
Server-side tracking gives Shopify merchants a more accurate, privacy-conscious way to collect data, measure performance, and understand their customers’ journeys.
By routing data through your server, you can collect more data than you would with client-side tracking to reduce attribution gaps and improve performance. Plus, it helps you to only share personal data with third parties after your customers have consented.
The benefits compound when you add Usercentrics Server-Side Tagging solution to your tech stack. Pre-built templates for GA4, Google Ads, and Meta (CAPI) get you up and running in no time so you can mitigate data loss and increase data accuracy. Easy integration with the Usercentrics Web CMP helps simplify your compliance efforts.
Even better, you can start for free. There’s no cost for up to 20,000 server-side requests/month.
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