Route all attribution tracking through your own domain for complete data capture.
First-party attribution is becoming essential as privacy regulations tighten and tracking restrictions multiply. Traditional third-party tracking loses 20-40% of data to ad blockers, browser restrictions, and corporate firewalls. This data loss creates blind spots in your customer journey analysis and skews your marketing attribution.
Modern ad blockers kill third-party tracking. Corporate firewalls block analytics requests. Privacy browsers restrict cross-site functionality.
Spectacle's Tracking Proxy solves this by routing all tracking through your domain instead of ours—giving you the benefits of first-party data collection with enterprise-grade attribution capabilities.
Understanding First-Party vs Third-Party Attribution
Third-party attribution loads tracking scripts from external domains (like analytics.google.com or api.spectaclehq.com). Browsers increasingly block these requests as potential privacy violations.
First-party attribution serves tracking functionality from your own domain. To browsers and privacy tools, this appears as legitimate site functionality rather than external tracking.
The result: Complete data capture for accurate attribution, better privacy compliance, and reliable tracking regardless of browser or ad blocker settings..
Comparison:
Method | Data Quality | Setup Complexity | Privacy Compliance | Ad Blocker Resistance | Multi-platform support |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
First-party proxy | Excellent | Medium | High | Complete | Full |
Server-side tracking | Excellent | High | High | Complete | Fiulll |
Client-side-first-party | Good | Low | Medium | Partial | Limited |
Third-party | Poor | Low | Low | None | Full |
First-party proxy tracking delivers the best combination of data quality, privacy compliance, and ease of implementation.
What Spectacle's Tracking Proxy Does
Instead of loading Spectacle from api.spectaclehq.com, your tracking runs from tracking.yourdomain.com.
To browsers, this looks like first-party functionality. No blocking. No filtering. Complete data capture for accurate attribution.
Technical implementation: We create a subdomain under your domain that proxies requests to Spectacle's infrastructure. Your visitors never leave your domain from a tracking perspective, but you get all the benefits of Spectacle's attribution platform.
Why This Transforms Your Attribution
Eliminates data loss: Ad blockers can't distinguish Spectacle tracking from your site's core functionality.
Captures complete customer journeys: Full session data enables accurate multi-touch attribution across every touchpoint.
Improves audience quality: Precise tracking data creates higher-quality segments for ad platform syncing.
Enhances privacy compliance: First-party data collection with proper consent aligns with GDPR requirements.
Extends cookie lifetime: First-party cookies persist longer than third-party ones, improving cross-session attribution.
Bypasses corporate firewalls: Enterprise visitors often have strict network policies that block third-party analytics. Your domain passes through these restrictions.
Setting Up Tracking Proxy
Step 1: Enable the feature
Navigate to workspace settings → Tracking
Enable "Tracking Proxy"
Note your generated subdomain (e.g.,
abc123.yourdomain.com)
Step 2: Configure DNS
Access your domain registrar
Create NS records for your subdomain pointing to Spectacle's nameservers
Allow 24-48 hours for DNS propagation
Step 3: Update tracking code
Setup your Spectacle snippet from your dashboard.
Real Impact on Your Attribution Data
Bypasses ad blockers completely: Tracking loads from your domain, so privacy tools treat it as legitimate site functionality. Complete data capture improves attribution accuracy.
Eliminates conversion tracking gaps: Fewer blocked requests mean you see complete customer journeys instead of fragmented touchpoints.
Improves data control: First-party collection gives you greater control over user information while improving GDPR compliance.
Reduces browser restrictions: Safari's Intelligent Tracking Prevention and similar features target third-party domains. Your subdomain bypasses these entirely.
Delivers higher-quality data: Complete behavioral capture—traffic sources, page views, conversion paths—that third-party tracking typically loses.
Increases reliability: Serving scripts from your infrastructure reduces third-party dependencies and can improve load speeds.
The Complete Result
Challenge | Solution | Attribution Impact |
|---|---|---|
Ad blocker interference | First-party domain routing | Complete customer journey data |
Browser restrictions | Subdomain bypass | Persistent cross-session tracking |
Privacy compliance needs | Controlled data collection | First-party data with proper consent |
Data quality issues | Unblocked tracking | Richer behavioral insights |
Reliability problems | Your infrastructure | Consistent tracking without third-party dependencies |
The Future of Attribution is First-Party
Privacy regulations continue expanding globally. Browser restrictions grow stricter each year. Ad blockers become more sophisticated.
First-party attribution isn't just better—it's becoming the only reliable option for complete customer journey tracking.
Businesses that implement first-party attribution now gain a competitive advantage: more accurate data, better privacy compliance, and reliable tracking regardless of browser or privacy tool settings.
Combined with Spectacle's server-side distribution to ad platforms, you get bulletproof attribution that captures every touchpoint while maintaining privacy compliance.
Ready for complete attribution data? Enable Tracking Proxy in your Spectacle workspace settings and eliminate tracking gaps forever.
Attribution data that captures reality.