Search and you shall find.
Whether you need help with setup, troubleshooting, or understanding specific features, this resource is designed to provide quick and comprehensive solutions. Browse through the FAQs to get the assistance you need and make the most out of your beetle tracking experience. If you can’t find the answer you’re looking for, feel free to contact our support team for further help.
General questions:
Server-Side Tracking
At its core, server-side tracking involves collecting and processing user data directly on the server, as opposed to client-side tracking, where data is collected directly from the user’s browser or device. Here’s a breakdown:
- Client-Side Tracking: Traditionally, when a user visits a website, various tracking scripts run directly on their browser. These scripts collect data like user behavior, page views, clicks, and more. The data is then sent to analytics or marketing tools for processing and reporting.
- Server-Side Tracking: Instead of relying on the user’s browser to send data directly to these analytics or marketing tools, the data is first sent to the website’s own server. From there, the server processes this data and then forwards it to the necessary tools or platforms. This is done without much direct involvement from the user’s device and is done without negativly effecting the websites performance any user experience by loading scripts.
Conclusion
Server-side tracking gives you:
- Both more data and more accurate data
- Better marketing campaigns based on better date
- Better target audience based on better data
- Better analytics and reports, based on batter data and more event parameters
- Better user experience on your website (increased website speed)
Download Beetle Tracking plugin for free, and switch to server-side tracking today.
Benefits of Server-Side Tracking:
- Privacy and Compliance: With increasing regulations like GDPR, CCPA, and others, ensuring user data privacy is paramount. Server-side tracking provides better control over user data, allowing businesses to manage, anonymize, or modify it before sending it to third-party tools.
- Performance: Running multiple tracking scripts on the user’s browser can slow down website performance. By moving this processing to the server, the user’s browser remains unburdened, leading to a faster browsing experience.
- Accuracy: Ad-blockers and browser restrictions can prevent client-side scripts from running, leading to missed data points. Since server-side tracking bypasses the browser’s direct data collection, it can lead to more accurate data collection.
- Flexibility: Server-side allows for more intricate and custom data processing, letting businesses tailor the data they send to various tools, ensuring only relevant information is transmitted.
Cloudflare Zaraz:
Cloudflare Zaraz plays a crucial role in the realm of server-side tracking. Here’s how:
- Optimized Performance: Zaraz streamlines the integration of various third-party tools and services by loading them efficiently. This means fewer scripts running on the client’s side, leading to better website performance.
- Intelligent Loading: Zaraz ensures that only necessary scripts are loaded, further improving site speed and reducing unnecessary data collection.
- Centralized Management: Instead of individually integrating each tool or service, Zaraz offers a centralized platform to manage and configure them. This not only saves time but also ensures consistent data handling.
- Enhanced Security and Privacy: Cloudflare is known for its security capabilities. Zaraz benefits from this reputation, offering a secure environment for data processing and transfer, aligned with modern privacy standards.
In summary, server-side tracking provides a more efficient, accurate, and privacy-focused approach to data collection and processing. Tools like Cloudflare Zaraz further enhance these benefits by offering optimized, centralized, and secure solutions for integrating third-party services and tools.
Benefits in Practice:
- Enhanced Performance: With fewer scripts loading on the browser, pages can load faster and run more smoothly, providing a better user experience.
- Improved Data Quality: By controlling the data processing on the server, businesses can ensure the data sent to third-party tools is clean, accurate, and in the desired format.
- Privacy Control: Server-side allows businesses to manage data in line with privacy regulations. Before forwarding it to third-party platforms, any sensitive or personally identifiable information (PII) can be anonymized or excluded.
- Flexibility: On the server, businesses can integrate with a wide variety of tools, make custom data transformations, or even switch between third-party platforms without having to make major changes on the actual website.
In a nutshell, server-side tracking in practice involves capturing user interactions, sending this data to the website’s server for processing, and then forwarding the refined data to the desired third-party platforms.
This method offers enhanced performance, data quality, and flexibility while adhering to stringent privacy regulations.
So the answer is
YES, we definitely recommend that you switch to server-side tracking immediately!
You can get started quite easily by downloading our WordPress Plugin: Beetle Tracking and follow our easy Getting Started Guide.
Server-Side Tracking in Practice
- User Interaction on the Website: When a user visits a website or performs an action (like clicking a button or filling out a form), this action creates data. In the traditional client-side model, this data would be sent directly to third-party tools from the user’s browser. In server-side tracking, it’s handled differently.
- Data Sent to the Server: Instead of the user’s browser sending the data directly to third-party analytics or marketing platforms, it first sends this data to the website’s own server. This step can use various methods, such as HTTP requests.
- Processing on the Server: Once the data arrives at the server, the server can process it. This can involve cleaning the data, filtering out unnecessary information, enriching the data with other relevant details, or even aggregating it with other data.
- Forwarding to Third-Party Tools: After processing, the server then sends the data to the necessary third-party tools, platforms, or databases. The server essentially acts as a middle-man, ensuring the data gets to the right places in the right format.
- Feedback Loop: Optionally, after the third-party tools have done their part (e.g., analyzing the data, segmenting audiences, or triggering marketing automations), they can send back insights, results, or any other relevant data to the server, which can then be stored or further acted upon.
- User Experience: For the user, this entire process is largely invisible. The primary difference they might notice is potentially improved website performance, as fewer scripts and trackers are directly running on their browser.
