What is Server Side Tagging?
Server Side Tagging enables the ThoughtMetric pixel to load from your website's domain (e.g. tm.mysite.com) instead of thoughtmetric.io.
What are the benefits of using Server Side Tagging?
Server Side Tagging improves ThoughtMetric's ability to accurately track users & connect all their touchpoints by getting around ad blockers, iOS14 and Safari ITP. Using server side tagging will deliver the ThoughtMetric tracking pixel to your store via your own first party domain name so that our code looks like its a normal part of your store. This will prevent ad blockers from blocking our tracking. Roughly 30% of all users are blocking tracking currently with ad block and an even higher percent use iOS and Safari so this feature improves data quality drastically.
How do I set this up for my account?
Step 1.) Generate Domain and IP Address
Go to your project settings page and scroll down to the section labeled "Custom Tracking Domain". Click on the button that says "Start Set Up" to generate your custom domain and IP Address.
Step 2.) Set up DNS Record
You will need to add a DNS A record to point the custom domain generated in the last step to the ip address generated in the last step. This will enable all traffic to the subdomain to be forwarded to ThoughtMetric, while still appearing to browsers/ad blockers like a built-in part of your site.
Create an A record using the custom domain and ip assigned to you.
If you need help adding the A record, here are instructions for some popular domain providers:
Note: If you set up this DNS entry through CloudFlare, make sure to disable the “proxy through cloudflare” setting for this entry.
Step 3.) Test that DNS is correctly configured
Use a DNS testing tool like https://dnschecker.org/ to confirm that your custom domain resolves to your custom IP. If the DNS is not properly configured you could break ThoughtMetric tracking for your store entirely.
Fixing common problems:
If dnschecker.org is not confirming that your custom domain is pointing to your custom IP this may mean that your DNS is not properly configured. Here are some common troubleshooting steps.
It can take up to 30 minutes for DNS settings to propagate so you may simply need to wait and check again later.
Some DNS systems only want the subdomain to be entered into the 'host name' field. For example if your custom domain is abc123.mystore.com you will only want to enter in 'abc123' into the 'host name' field.
Step 4.) Update Existing Tracking Code
Now that your DNS is configured, you will need to update the tracking code on your website to use the new domain you just set up.
Head to the "Tracking Code" section of ThoughtMetric. Now that the custom domain is enabled for your store, the tracking code in the setup instructions is modified to use the custom domain that you just configured. Go through the tracking code setup instructions again and replace the old ThoughtMetric tracking code on your site with the code in the instructions.
