Commercial collaboration
Marketers’ jobs have become increasingly challenging in recent years as they contend with tightening data restrictions. According to the server-side tracking provider JENTIS, lack of user consent can result in a 20-40% loss of traffic, ad blockers account for another 10%, and additional tracking restrictions in browsers like Safari can lead to a significant drop drop in data quality—leaving marketers with access to only 35-40% of the data they need. This data scarcity makes it harder to optimize campaigns, personalize experiences, and build long-term customer loyalty.
This is why leading e-commerce brands are shifting to server-side tracking—to gain access to more accurate, high-quality data while maintaining full control over it, ensuring their data infrastructure is future-proof. Solutions like JENTIS enable businesses to recover up to 100% of their conversions and activate them in a fully privacy-compliant way.
But why make the switch? Let’s have a look at the limitations of client-side tracking.
Challenges of Client-side Tracking
Client-side tracking has been the standard for years, relying on JavaScript tags embedded in a website to collect data and send it directly to third-party platforms like Google Analytics, Meta, or other advertising networks. While widely used, this method comes with several limitations:
- Ad blockers & ITP restrictions: Many browsers (Safari, Firefox, and even Chrome) now block or limit third-party cookies, reducing the accuracy of data collection.
- Data loss & inconsistencies: Due to tracking prevention mechanisms and user consent opt-outs, businesses often experience gaps in their analytics.
- Slow loading speeds: Excessive client-side tracking scripts can negatively impact website performance, leading to higher bounce rates and lower conversion rates as a result of a poor user experience.
- Security & privacy concerns: With client-side tracking, data is directly shared with multiple third parties, increasing exposure to compliance risks and potential data breaches
Google has halted its planned phase-out of third-party cookies in Chrome. However, with the introduction of an opt-in policy—requiring users to actively consent to third-party cookie tracking—consent rates are expected to remain extremely low. As a result, third-party cookies will likely become virtually irrelevant for tracking and marketing. In fact, they are already being blocked so frequently that Google and Meta advise their customers to switch to first-party and server-side tracking to improve ad performance.
How is Server-side Tracking different?
Server-side tracking moves the data collection process from the user’s browser to a secure cloud environment. Instead of transmitting data directly from the client (user’s device) to third-party platforms, information is first processed on a dedicated server before being forwarded. This approach is a game-changer for e-commerce, offering:
- Uninterrupted data collection despite ad blockers and tracking restrictions
- Full control over raw data for deeper insights and analysis
- Seamless compliance with GDPR and global data protection regulations
- A future-proof data strategy built on a strong first-party data foundation
Buzzword AI and its impact on tracking
With stricter rules on data use due to missing consent for ads and analytics cookies, new solutions have emerged to balance privacy compliance with effective marketing. Artificial intelligence is now reshaping digital marketing—including data tracking—by offering innovative alternatives to traditional cookie-based methods. One promising approach is synthetic data, which mimics real user behavior while preserving privacy. This AI-driven solution helps marketers gain accurate customer insights without relying on personal data, ensuring compliance while maintaining data-driven decision-making.
Synthetic data is a practical solution. It allows businesses to analyze trends and behaviors without using actual personal data. This approach helps companies stay compliant with privacy laws while still gaining valuable insights for their marketing strategies.
There are few options on the market. One approach fills data gaps by using aggregated signals and modeled insights to estimate user behavior. In contrast, JENTIS Synthetic Users take a different approach, generating privacy-compliant datasets based on real user interactions. This provides a much more accurate way to regain valuable data.
The integration of synthetic data into marketing analytics brings several advantages:
- Regulatory Compliance: Since synthetic data doesn’t contain real personal information, it meets GDPR and other privacy laws, allowing businesses to analyze data ethically and legally.
- Scalability: It helps overcome the problem of small data samples by generating larger, more diverse datasets for better trend analysis and scenario planning.
- Long-Term Usability: Unlike real user data, synthetic data can be stored for longer periods, making it useful for tracking trends over time and improving long-term strategies.
- Better Campaign Performance: Marketers can use synthetic conversion data to run more accurate A/B tests, predict outcomes, and fine-tune audience targeting, leading to better results and higher ROI.
Retail Media & First-Party Data: The Winning Combination
Retail media is one of the fastest-growing advertising segments, projected to surpass $140 billion by 2027—rivaling traditional TV and social media ad spend (Insider Intelligence, 2024). However, this shift to retail media demands the high-quality first-party data that server-side tracking provides.
The combination of first-party data and server-side tracking provides brands with a robust method for collecting accurate, privacy-compliant data. By shifting the tracking of user behavior from the browser (client-side) to the retailer’s server, server-side tracking enhances data reliability while ensuring better compliance with privacy regulations.
When integrated with retail media, server-side tracking enables retailers to collect data on customer interactions across various devices and platforms.
By incorporating server-side tracking into retail media strategies, you gain deeper insights into ad performance, allowing you to refine campaigns and improve return on ad spend (ROAS).
With JENTIS server-side tracking, retailers can:
- Reduce data loss by bypassing ad blockers and browser restrictions, ensuring that ads reach the intended audience more effectively.
- Improve attribution accuracy, ensuring better campaign performance tracking
- Enhance compliance with privacy regulations by controlling how data is collected and shared
- Optimize return on ad spend (ROAS) by delivering more personalized and effective ads
Why E-Commerce Businesses should leverage Server-side Tracking
E-commerce brands can no longer rely on outdated tracking methods that provide limited visibility into customer behavior. The future of digital marketing lies in first-party data and privacy-first analytics—and companies that have prioritized these strategies are already gaining a significant competitive edge.
But what are the specific reasons for switching to server-side tracking?
1. Optimized Buying Journeys
Server-side tracking allows businesses to accurately map out key touchpoints across the four stages of a purchase: brand awareness, brand consideration, purchase, and repeat purchase. Companies can better identify high-performing pages, cart abandonment points, and top-performing CTAs, which enables them to streamline navigation, simplify checkout, and increase conversions.
2. Smarter Marketing Campaigns
Precise transaction and shipping data can be leveraged to build highly targeted remarketing campaigns. With clean first-party data, retailers can create personalized offers tailored to different customer segments, increasing conversion rates and lifetime value.
With server-side tracking, you can activate users even without consent while remaining fully compliant. JENTIS has recently introduced a powerful AI-driven feature, Synthetic Users, which predicts user behavior and fills data gaps with actionable synthetic data. Retailers who have tested Synthetic Users have reported up to a 25% uplift in ROAS.
3. Analyze Login and Customer Activity
Track login patterns to gauge customer engagement, detect inactivity trends, and improve account security. This helps identify friction points in the login process and enhances user retention strategies.
4. Refine On-Site Search and Product Discovery
Monitor search behavior by tracking keywords, search frequency, and clicked results. These insights help optimize search functionality, ensuring customers quickly find the products they need, reducing bounce rates, and increasing conversions.
5. Improve Form Completion Rates
Track form submissions (for example, newsletter subscriptions) to analyze completion rates and pinpoint where users drop off. This enables businesses to refine forms for a smoother user experience and higher submission rates.
6. Gain Deeper Content Engagement Insights
Understand how customers interact with dynamic content elements like carousels or videos. These insights help refine content strategies to boost engagement and time spent on-site
What to take into account when choosing a server-side tracking solution
First, you need to decide between two main approaches to server-side tracking: the self-hosted approach and the managed service approach, depending on your goals and internal resources.
The self-hosted approach involves using open frameworks, such as Google’s SS-GTM. While this option offers a customized setup, it requires continuous time and resource investment. Specifically, you’ll need to:
- Host and maintain the solution yourself, 24/7.
- Develop and maintain tool integrations on your own.
- Manage the CMP link independently.
- Rely mostly on community support, though agencies can assist with some tasks.
The self-hosted approach is usually chosen by large organizations with internal human and economic resources who value solutions tailored to their needs.
On the other hand, the managed service approach provides a complete SaaS solution, where the service providers, such as JENTIS, handle the key responsibilities. With this option you get:
- Managed hosting and monitoring
- A wide range of tool integrations.
- Seamless integration with many different CMPs.
- Continuous support through a helpdesk or dedicated contact based on SLAs.
Customers using JENTIS enjoy superior data quality and complete data control, while the service provider handles the backend tasks. This managed solution approach is typically preferred by organizations seeking quick implementation and a reliable solution, with the added benefit of not having to worry about updates and improvements.
JENTIS provides an industry-leading server-side tracking solution that integrates effortlessly with hundreds of marketing tools and platforms while ensuring compliance, performance, and reliability. Whether you run a small online store or a multinational e-commerce enterprise, making the switch to server-side tracking with JENTIS will future-proof your analytics and help you stay ahead in a privacy-conscious digital world.
To learn more about how server-side tracking can boost your revenue, contact one of our tracking experts for a personalized assessment.
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