LEDWINKEL-Online stands at the forefront of the lighting industry, specializing in both smart and standard LED solutions. Their products range from residential to business lighting, reflecting a broad spectrum of uses and designs. Located in Amsterdam, LEDWINKEL-Online serves a diverse clientele spanning the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany.

Let’s explore how I helped them addressed the critical challenge of tracking conversions and revenue accurately—essential in the highly competitive LED market—through advanced the latest tracking techniques.

Challenge – The need of server-side tagging

As an e-commerce entity heavily dependent on Google Ads and organic traffic, LEDWINKEL-Online realized the imperative of understanding and optimizing the pathways leading to conversions.

Originally configured with a native Shopify Google Analytics setup, the store captured only about 70% of actual transaction data recorded in the back-end systems. This discrepancy signaled the potential loss of critical insights into customer behavior and advertising effectiveness, thus impeding strategic decision-making.

Recognizing these limitations, I propose to the store owners to explore server-side tagging using Google Tag Manager to gain more robust and precise data.

Tracking Issues

Several significant tracking challenges were impacting the accuracy of LEDWINKEL-Online’s conversion data:

• Broken Checkout Tracking: An inconsistency in tracking at various steps of the checkout process led to the underreporting of successful transactions.
• Google Ads Tracking Limitations: Apple’s Safari browser, representing around 30% of the site’s traffic, restricts cookie lifespan to 24 hours, curtailing the accuracy of conversion tracking over more extended periods.
• Adblocker Interference: The use of adblocking software by a segment of the audience resulted in the non-recording of visits and conversions, skewing the analytics further.
• Cross-Device Purchases: With consumers increasingly using multiple devices along their purchase journeys, tracking conversions across these devices posed a significant challenge.

Implemented Solutions

To address these issues, LEDWINKEL-Online accepted my proposal to adopt the following approaches:

Hybrid Server-Side Tagging: The store maintained its existing web container while adding a server-side tracking environment. This setup ensured richer data collection without losing the benefits of the traditional web analytics approach.

Custom Loader for Google Tag Manageri: To circumvent Safari’s restrictive cookie policy, we implemented a custom solution that extends the duration of tracking cookies.

Meta Conversion API: Leveraging the server-side container, the store set up Meta’s Conversion API, which enabled tracking of user actions more reliably by directly interfacing with Facebook’s systems.

Enhanced Conversions via DataLayer: This technique involved passing more detailed conversion data to Google Ads through the DataLayer, enhancing the accuracy of measurable purchases.

Results – Over 90% match between CRM and Analytics

Introducing these hybrid approach to server-side tagging, we’ve seen remarkable improvements in the data flow.

For example, the correspondence between recorded revenue in Google Analytics 4 and the back-end financial data rose dramatically from 70% to over 90% within just three months.

We’ve also seen another significant improvement in Facebook (Meta) Events Data. The integration of Meta’s Conversion API via the Server-Side Google Tag Manager not only simplified the tracking process but also boosted the accuracy rate to over 95%, a stark improvement from the 50% accuracy with the native Shopify analytics tool.