We have migrated more than forty accounts to server-side tracking. The ones that go smoothly follow the same order. The painful ones skip step two.
Start with an event map, not a tag manager
Before touching GTM, write down every conversion that matters and where it should fire: page, form, server, CRM. Half the tracking problems we inherit are events nobody designed, just accumulated. The map decides what lives and what gets deleted.
Deduplicate or double count
Browser pixel and server event both firing for the same purchase is the classic CAPI bug. Each event needs a shared event ID so Meta can deduplicate. Skip this and your reported conversions inflate 30 to 50 percent, which feels great until you try to reconcile it with actual revenue.
“Clean tracking is invisible. You only notice it when the numbers finally match the bank account.”
Consent mode before you celebrate
GA4 consent mode and the consent banner need to talk to each other before launch, or you are either dropping lawful events or collecting unlawful ones. Test in a staging environment, then again in production with a real purchase.
This is the core of our Tracking & CRO work. If your numbers disagree across platforms, start there.
