Server-side conversions

Server-side conversions lives in the Marketing area of the dashboard, under Attribution.

At a glance#

What it does#

Server-side conversions is the web equivalent of mobile partner postbacks: it forwards web conversions to the ad platforms from the server rather than from the browser. Today that means Meta's Conversions API and Google's Enhanced Conversions.

It works from first-party click identifiers — fbclid and gclid — with event-id deduplication and hashed personal data. This page surfaces the delivery log: which conversions were dispatched to which platform.

When to use it#

For any paid web acquisition, and increasingly it is the only thing that works. Browser-based conversion tracking is degraded by tracking protection, extensions and cookie restrictions, and the degradation is uneven — which means your browser-reported conversions understate performance for exactly the audiences most likely to block.

Server-side forwarding is not affected by any of that, because it does not run in the browser.

Workflow#

1. 1

   Capture the click ids on landing

   fbclid and gclid arrive as query parameters and must be captured before they are lost to a redirect or a client-side route change. Nothing works without them.

2. 2

   Send the same event id from both paths

   If you also fire browser-side conversions, matching event ids let the platform deduplicate. Without them, you double-count.

3. 3

   Check the delivery log

   A dispatched conversion is one the platform can optimise against. Failures mean it cannot.

4. 4

   Verify in the ad platform

   Both Meta and Google report received event quality on their side. That is the confirmation that matters.

Permissions and prerequisites#

Web apps only. Requires the ad platform integrations configured with credentials, and revenue or conversion events from your site.

Limits and edge cases#

• Click ids expire. A conversion long after the click may have no usable identifier.

• Without matching event ids, browser and server conversions double-count.

• Platforms deduplicate on their own terms, so their count can legitimately differ from your delivery count.

• Mobile uses postbacks instead — see Postbacks.

Troubleshooting#

Conversions dispatched but the platform reports poor match quality. Too few identifiers are being sent, or the click id was lost before capture.

Double-counted conversions. Event ids do not match between your browser and server paths.

Nothing dispatched. Click ids are not being captured on landing — check for a redirect stripping the query string.

Where the data comes from#

Forwards web conversions server-side using first-party click ids (fbclid / gclid) with event-id dedup and hashed personal data — which carries consent obligations.

From the SDK

• Events

Served by

• Tracking

• Dashboard

Related#

• Postbacks

• Campaign landing

• Attribution overview

• Click fraud

• Self-attributing networks

• Partner event mapping

• Marketing overview