Announcing the Spectacle Server Side Template.
Grab our template directly from our github
The European Privacy Landscape
Browser privacy protections in Europe have fundamentally changed the requirements for accurate marketing attribution. The numbers tell the story:
Privacy Restriction | Impact |
|---|---|
Safari ITP | Deletes first-party cookies after 7 days of inactivity |
Firefox Enhanced Tracking Protection | Blocks third-party requests by default for 200M+ European users |
Ad Blocker Adoption | 42% in Europe vs. 25% in the United States |
Data Loss from Client-Side Tracking | 30-40% of attribution data |
The result? Client-side tracking implementations lose 30-40% of their data, making accurate multi-touch attribution impossible.
How Server-Side Tracking Solves This
Server-side tracking solves this problem by processing events from a first-party context that bypasses browser restrictions. When tracking requests originate from your own domain infrastructure rather than third-party scripts, ad blockers can't distinguish them from legitimate application traffic. Server-set cookies avoid ITP's seven-day limitations entirely. Data can be validated, enriched, and normalized before transmission to your attribution platform. This architecture maintains GDPR compliance while recovering the 30-40% of tracking data lost to browser restrictions.
Spectacle's Server-Side GTM Template
Our clients urged us to develop a server-side template to address these tracking challenges, and we're happy to share this with you. Spectacle now provides a server-side Google Tag Manager template that implements this architecture with minimal configuration. Key features include:
Standard event support:
Page, Identify, Track, and Group events
Custom property processing:
Full support for user traits and event metadata
Full-fidelity forwarding:
Complete data transmission to Spectacle's attribution engine
Simple implementation:
Import template, configure workspace credentials, deploy
No infrastructure changes:
Works with your existing GTM Server container
Taggrs integration:
Native support in Taggrs' managed GTM Server environment
Implementation requires no application modifications or infrastructure changes—just import the template into your GTM Server container and configure your workspace credentials.