When to send data to GTM server container (and when not to bother)

Hey all. I’m completely new to all of this.

My question regards understanding when its advantageous to send data to server GTM and when I needn’t bother.

For context:

I’ve setup the server side container and it loads as a first party cookie from my subdomain.

And I’ll want to send purchase data to the server GTM so I can pass it on to Facebook/Reddit cAPI for better ads attribution (I’ll likely do that with the Data Tag / Data Client). That’s an obvious reason to send data to server GTM.

But… For things like Google Analytics, and the Facebook/Reddit Pixels - should i bother sending their data to the server container? Or just use the web container for these? Am I missing anything by keeping them in the web container?

If I’m correct the data collection part is the same, it’s just the sending on part that may give me advantages e.g. more control on what’s sent from the server GTM, which I’m not bothered about. Is that correct?

Thanks!

Facebook recommends using a hybrid method, which is when you have web events running and copies of them being sent from the server. This way you get the best of both worlds.
But for example GA4 and Google ADS don’t support this and they can only work through the web or only through the server.

Thanks Alex, appreciate it

Hey Van,

I personally run it all out of the sGTM, and then configure the events from wGTM, then I can control the flow onwards out of sGTM

things like X-Device-Bot, X-Real-Ip, X-Stape-User-Id, X-Geo-~~ can enrich the data going to these platforms, and block (in the case of X-Device-Bot) if needed.

1 Like

This is exactly what I’m going to do. Thanks Chris

1 Like