Google Tag Gateway: How It Supercharges Spectacle Performance

Google's new first-party tracking feature makes Spectacle even more powerful.

Google quietly released Tag Gateway this year. Previously Google offered similar server-side tracking capabilities through the Google Cloud, but hasn't been easy to setup. Tag Gateway is the easy answer for most of us marketeers.

Most marketers haven't heard of it. But for Spectacle users, it's a great power-up.

What Google Tag Gateway Does

Tag Gateway routes Google's tracking tags through your domain instead of Google's servers. Instead of loading from googletagmanager.com, they load from yourdomain.com/metrics.

To browsers and ad blockers, these look like first-party requests. No blocking. No filtering. Complete data capture.

Cloudflare's testing shows 11% more successful tracking on average. For attribution platforms like Spectacle, that means more complete customer journey data.

How This Improves Spectacle

Spectacle already captures events first-party and sends them server-side to all your ad platforms. But Gateway adds another layer of data protection.

More complete page tracking: Any remaining Google tags (Analytics, basic tracking) now load first-party, eliminating data gaps.

Enhanced attribution accuracy: When Spectacle captures more complete user sessions, multi-touch attribution becomes more precise.

Better audience building: More complete data means higher-quality audience segments syncing to your ad platforms.

Improved campaign optimisation: Complete tracking data helps Spectacle identify which campaigns truly drive high-LTV customers.

Essentially, Gateway ensures zero data loss while Spectacle handles the sophisticated attribution and server-side distribution.

Setting Up Gateway with Spectacle

If you use Cloudflare:

1. Open Google Tag Manager

2. Go to Admin → Google Tag Gateway

3. Connect your Cloudflare account

4. Choose /metrics as your path (this /metrics path is configured during setup and becomes the point where Google’s scripts are fetched and served.)

5. Done

Without Cloudflare:

1. Configure your CDN to proxy yourdomain.com/metrics/ to [tag-id].fps.goog

2. Update any Google tag references to use your domain

3. Test by visiting yourdomain.com/metrics/healthy

Spectacle setup:

Your Spectacle tracking already runs first-party if you've enabled tracking proxy. If not:

1. Enable tracking proxy in Spectacle settings

2. Update DNS with the NS records provided

3. Replace your tracking snippet with the first-party version

or read the full Spectacle tracking proxy documentation here

Google Tag Gateway Best Practices

When implementing Tag Gateway, test the setup in a staging environment first. This confirms tags load properly from your domain and tracking requests reach their destination without issues.

Ensure your chosen measurement path (like /metrics) doesn't conflict with existing site functionality. Once configured, that path becomes dedicated to tag delivery—don't use it for other content.

Gateway works seamlessly with existing privacy tools and Consent Mode. You maintain compliance while capturing more complete attribution data.

The Result

Complete first-party attribution stack. Zero data loss. Better campaign performance across all platforms.

Gateway handles the Google side. Spectacle handles everything else—multi-touch attribution, server-side conversion tracking, audience syncing, revenue connection.

Ready to eliminate tracking gaps? If you're already using Spectacle, enable Gateway today. If you're not using Spectacle yet, start your free trial and implement both for bulletproof attribution.

First-party tracking that actually works.