Simo Ahava-Server-side Tagging in Google Tag Manager

What You Get: Simo Ahava – Server-side Tagging in Google Tag Manager:

Welcome to Google Tag Manager’s Server-side Tagging! This course will teach you everything you need to know about configuring the tagging environment, migrating your client-side tags to run through the server, customizing the environment to meet your specific needs, optimizing Google Cloud Platform resources, and more.

With (welcome) advancements in privacy legislation and browser tracking protections, it has become increasingly important to gain control of the data flows that move between users and third-party vendors who want this user data.

By loading vendor scripts directly into the browser or app, these scripts have virtually unlimited freedom to collect data. These scripts frequently have a negative impact on the browsing experience.

Server-side tagging adds a new point of contact between the user and the vendor. The site owner can ensure the end user’s privacy by deploying a server container in Google Tag Manager, which allows the cumbersome and privacy-invading tracking and data collection logic to run through their server first, where they can do things like data validation, consent management, resource caching, and complete source anonymization.

This course will walk you through all of the steps necessary to set up your own tagging environment. While you can complete the course lessons with a zero-cost setup, there will be some costs associated with running the virtual machines that handle your tagging environment once you move to a production environment (this is covered in the course).

If you are a marketing professional who wants to take your knowledge of Google Tag Manager and expand it to cover opportunities in the cloud, this course is for you.

If you are in IT or web development and you’ve been concerned with the proliferation of client-side tags and you want to take steps to improve governance, this course is for you.

This course is for managers who understand how important it is to establish ownership over data collection and processing processes within their organization.

This course is for you if you are data privacy or security professional who wants to deploy and utilize tools and methods for protecting the user’s right to control their data.

This course is for you if you are a Google Tag Manager user who wants to know more about the Cloud and the possibilities of server-side technologies.

We expect our students to have a basic understanding of Google Tag Manager, but no prior experience with cloud services is required. The course is designed to take you through all of the steps necessary to work confidently with server-side tagging in a professional setting.

The course includes

Task-based, bite-sized, self-paced video lessons

The course consists of more than 70 videos organized into lessons. Each lesson is intended to investigate a fundamental aspect of server-side tagging.

The videos are mostly voice-over screen recordings that have been enhanced to make it easier to follow along. The course is self-paced, so you can take it whenever you want.

To help you follow along, the videos are accompanied by an interactive English transcript as well as subtitles.

Text content is always a part of each topic, which helps to explain the ideas.

Getting Started

1. Setup the server-side tagging environment.
2. Create your first client.
3. Create your first tag.
4. Explore Preview mode in detail.
5. Configure the browser to send the hits to the server.

Upgrade the environment.

1. Reserve and map a custom domain to your server.
2. Learn about DNS and how to set up the records properly.
3. Find out more about Cloud resources.
4. Upgrade your environment to handle production data.
5. Learn to optimize costs and monitor your cloud resources.

Personalize Your Endpoint

1. Import community templates into your server container.
2. Learn about custom templates and how they can be built from scratch or customized to your liking.
3. Build your own client template.
4. Build your own tag templates.
5. Learn how to consolidate data streams to preserve client-side resources and performance.

Advanced Customizations

1. An ever-expanding inventory of advanced tips & tricks as well as advanced applications
2. This section will be constantly updated with new content.
3. You’ll learn to do things like build your own APIs, work with other cloud services, integrate with other tools, etc.
4. New content will always be announced on the course email list, and suggestions/requests for content will be received with gratitude.