Google today launched Server-Side Tagging on Google Tag Manager. Ben Fisher, Product Manager at Google, wrote publishers and advertisers can now move third-party tags off their websites into a new server container hosted in your Google Cloud account.
Server to Server means that when users interact with a page, the third-party tags are loaded directly in the server container rather than the site. Server to Server provides faster page load times, as tags are loaded on a server, and privacy to the end users.
Google Tag Manager Server to Server (S2S) only works with a container on a Google Cloud Platform (GCP) server. Google says the default deployment of a GCP project with a single server is free in most cases, as Google Cloud has free tiers, but a billing account is mandatory.
On Google Tag Manager (GTM) server to server, the tag types available right now are:
- Google Analytics: App + Web
- Google Analytics: Universal Analytics
- HTTP Request