Cookie deprecation, stricter browser privacy settings, and the increasing use of ad blockers all make gathering reliable marketing and analytics data challenging. For many businesses, this translates to diminished data accuracy and broken insights.
Enter server-side tracking (SST). By shifting data collection away from the user’s browser and onto your own server, SST gives you greater control over how you manage incoming data, including how it’s processed and which platforms receive it.
When you implement server-side tracking, you can gather data responsibly while integrating privacy considerations early. That is, if you follow the right steps.
Let’s look at how consent works in a server-side setup, what you need to get started with server-side data collection, and how tools like the Usercentrics CMP can help.
Server-side tracking is a method for collecting, processing, and storing information about website visitors and their activities in your business’s server infrastructure. In more technical terms, it’s the process of managing tracking tags on dedicated servers to generate first-party data and enforce consent management processes.
In practice, it’s the opposite of client-side tracking. In a client-side setup, scripts and cookies are run in a user’s browser to capture data and communicate it directly to third-party platforms like Google Analytics, Google Ads, or Meta Ads.
But with server-side setups, when your systems register user interactions on your website or app, such as via page loads or button clicks, the information is relayed to your own server. From there, it can be validated, enriched, or anonymized before being sent downstream to third-party services.
Learn everything you need to know in our server-side tagging guide , from how it works to how to set it up yourself.
There can be some major benefits of server-side tracking methods compared to client-side data collection:
Server-side tagging and tracking supports your data collection and privacy compliance strategy. When implemented properly, this approach enables you to adjust what data is collected, transformed, or forwarded based on a user’s consent choices.
While it enables you to define where and how the data you collect is processed, it doesn’t change your legal obligations under data protection regulations like the GDPR or the CCPA.
That means you’ll still need to obtain valid user consent before collecting, handling, or sharing personal data. You’re also obligated to honor a user’s choices at every step of the process.
Data privacy, and therefore the collection of server-side data, isn’t governed by a single global standard. Rather, it’s covered by a patchwork of regulations, frameworks, and guidelines applicable across regions and industries.
For instance, the United States does not have a single federal data privacy law, but to date there are over 20 state-level privacy laws in place, along with more targeted data privacy laws, like those governing access to children’s data or healthcare information.
Companies may need to comply with differing rules for every state in which they do business, along with regulations specific to their industry or other global regions where they operate.
It’s also worth noting that some privacy frameworks are legally binding, with strict penalties for noncompliance, while others provide more general recommendations or establish best practices and aren’t strictly enforced.
For example, the EU has both the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the ePrivacy Directive. The former is a binding regulation while the latter is a set of guidelines that individual countries in the region have been encouraged to add into their own regulations. In both cases, national data protection authorities in EU Member States handle enforcement.
As a result, privacy compliance often requires adhering to multiple standards. And legal requirements may not align with the expectations of your customer base as consumers become increasingly privacy-conscious.
Below are some of the most prominent data privacy laws along with details about who they apply to and the types of consent they require.
Aligning your server-side tracking practices with the regulations that apply to your business requires the right consent infrastructure.
Follow the four steps below for an implementation that prioritizes consent.
The first step is to select a CMP that easily integrates with a server-side setup. This will help to ensure that consent signals can be captured at the first point of interaction and reliably passed on to your backend systems.
Usercentrics CMP is purpose-built for exactly these types of data flows. Customizable consent banners make it easy for users to provide consent in alignment with the relevant privacy regulations in their region.
An integrated server-side tagging solution enables real-time consent signal transmission across your tech stack, making it easier to enforce user consent choices and achieve regulatory compliance.
Get started: Usercentrics connects consent management to Server-Side Tagging and tracking to strengthen user privacy.
You’ll need to provide your website visitors and app users with a consent banner that meets the requirements of the relevant data privacy laws and your data operations.
You’ll need to provide clear information about what data you collect and why. You may need to obtain consent before collecting data, or enable users to opt out at any time. Or you may need to give them granular control over whether data can be collected for specific purposes, like analytics or marketing.
The Usercentrics CMP also simplifies this process. Its geolocation feature gives you the ability to create and configure consent banners that reflect the data privacy laws in place where your users are located (and present clear information in their preferred language.)
You can also easily create and link to privacy policies that outline your data collection and processing practices, which is another pretty standard requirement of these regulations.
Your server needs to be configured to apply users’ consent preferences and prevent unauthorized or nonconsented data processing before passing data to third parties.
Configuration involves setting up logic filters or conditions that signal instances when data should be processed and how. For example, if a user declines web analytics tracking, your server should prevent their session events from being passed to Google Analytics.
Once your consent rules have been enforced by your server, it can then forward the data that aligns with each user’s consent choices to support compliance with relevant laws.
To demonstrate privacy compliance, you’ll need to keep a record of your server-side setup. Logs should include how consent is collected, the consent choices users make, how data is filtered, and which third-party platforms you send the data to.
In the event of either data subject requests from users or an investigation or audit by authorities, this documentation can demonstrate that you record, respect, and consistently enforce the consent choices of your website visitors.
Maintaining these records is made much easier when you use a CMP like Usercentrics’. It can automatically log consent decisions over time and sync them to your server, helping to demonstrate that you have a lawful basis for data processing.
Server-side tracking is a resilient, privacy-conscious approach to collecting data from your website visitors.
Setup doesn’t have to be any more complex than client-side tracking. With Usercentrics CMP, you can easily obtain compliant consent and pass it directly to the server environment managed by your business.
As a result, you get more accurate, fully consented data about user behavior delivered straight to your web server, which can then power insights and campaigns. That means you gain a better understanding of your customers without compromising on data privacy compliance.
Usercentrics Server-Side Tagging and Tracking solutions enable you to take full control over your data to boost customer trust and achieve privacy compliance.
Server-side tracking is a privacy-friendly way to collect and process data from your website or app through a secure server rather than directly in the user’s browser. This method minimizes data loss, enhances security, and supports compliance with privacy regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It also helps you maintain accurate analytics and marketing insights while reducing reliance on third-party cookies.
While not mandatory, server-side tracking is increasingly essential for accurate measurement and privacy compliance. As browsers restrict third-party cookies and tracking scripts, server-side tracking helps businesses:
It’s a proactive way to future-proof your data strategy while respecting user consent.
Server-side conversion tracking records user actions — like sign-ups or purchases — through your server, helping to ensure data accuracy even when browser restrictions apply.
This approach improves conversion measurement, optimizes ad performance, and helps to ensure that only consented data is shared with ad platforms. For marketers, it bridges the gap between performance and privacy.
Server-side tagging consent mode integrates Google Consent Mode and server-side tagging to manage how data is shared with Google services based on user consent. It helps to ensure tracking respects user choices while still allowing for privacy-safe analytics and conversion modeling.
This setup enables you to: