How to implement GTM server-side to much less impact to the performance?

February 23, 2025 · Nova Theme

Implementing Google Tag Manager (GTM) server-side for a Shopify store involves several steps to ensure that data is sent securely and accurately from your Shopify store to GTM. This implementation will enhance the performance of your store, improve data security, and give you greater flexibility with your tracking.

Steps to Implement GTM Server-Side for Shopify:

1. Set up a Server-Side GTM Container

Before you implement server-side GTM, you'll need to create a server-side GTM container.

Steps to create a Server-Side GTM Container:

  • Go to your Google Tag Manager Account.
  • Create a new GTM Container (if you don't have one yet), and choose the option for Server as the container type.
  • After creating the container, GTM will provide you with a Server Container URL. This is the URL you’ll use for data collection.

2. Set Up a Server (GTM Server-Side Endpoint)

For server-side GTM, you'll need to use a server to handle data and forward it to Google Tag Manager. You can use Google Cloud Platform (GCP) or another server provider.

Steps to Set Up a Server on Google Cloud:

  • Go to the Google Cloud Console.
  • Create a New Project and link it to your GTM server-side container.
  • Deploy GTM Server-Side on GCP:
    • GTM offers a pre-configured App Engine app to make the deployment easy.
    • Use the GCP Console to deploy it with the following steps:
      • Enable Cloud Functions API and App Engine API.
      • Deploy the GTM Server-Side container using the provided deployment script (the script is usually available in the GTM setup guide).
    • Once deployed, you'll get the Server Container URL, which you will use to forward data.

3. Configure Shopify to Send Data to the Server-Side GTM Container

In this step, you will update your Shopify store to send data (such as page views, events, purchases, etc.) to the GTM Server Container URL.

Steps to Update Shopify:

  • In your Shopify Admin, go to Online Store > Themes.
  • Open the theme.liquid file (or the file that handles your store's script tags).
  • Add the GTM client-side code (tracking scripts) in the header/footer section as you would normally do for GTM. However, you will modify it to send data to the server-side container.
    • For example, you might use the window.dataLayer.push() method to send data to the server container.

To integrate GTM Server-Side with Shopify, a common method is to use a proxy server that forwards data to GTM’s server-side endpoint. You'll need to configure the server-side GTM container to accept requests and handle them accordingly.

4. Use Shopify Webhooks for Real-Time Event Tracking

Shopify offers webhooks to notify external systems when certain events occur (such as order creation, product updates, etc.). You can use these webhooks to send real-time data to your GTM server.

Steps to Set up Webhooks:

  • In your Shopify Admin, go to Settings > Notifications.
  • Scroll down to Webhooks and create a new webhook for the events you want to track (such as order creation, checkout completion).
  • Set the webhook's URL to the server-side GTM endpoint.
  • The server will receive this data and send it to GTM for processing.

5. Configure GTM Server-Side to Handle Data

Once the data is sent to the server-side container, you need to configure GTM to handle and process this data.

Steps to Configure GTM:

  • In your GTM Server-Side Container, set up the necessary tags to forward data to services like Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, or other third-party platforms.
  • For example, if you’re sending data from Shopify’s purchase event, set up a tag in GTM to send that data to Google Analytics.

6. Test and Debug

Before going live, it’s important to test and debug the setup.

Steps for Testing:

  • Use GTM’s Preview Mode to ensure that data is being sent correctly.
  • Verify that events and data (like page views, add-to-cart, purchase, etc.) are being properly tracked in your server-side GTM container.
  • Use Google Tag Manager’s Server-Side Debugger to confirm if the data reaches the server and is properly processed.

Benefits of Server-Side GTM for Shopify:

  1. Improved Data Privacy & Security: Server-side GTM allows you to control which data is sent to third-party services, offering enhanced privacy and security for your customers.
  2. Reduced Ad Blockers Impact: Since the tracking occurs server-side, ad blockers are less likely to block the tracking tags.
  3. Enhanced Performance: Server-side tracking reduces the load on the client side, improving page load speed and site performance.