Improved data quality and enhanced data protection through Google Analytics 4 server-side tracking

Suffel Fördertechnik GmbH & Co. KG is an absolute expert in the field of intralogistics and hydraulics. Apart from manufacturing and selling industrial trucks, working platforms, and transport vehicles, they offer a comprehensive range of various services. These include equipment rental, custom-built solutions, and support for preventive measures. 

(It's important to note that this is a B2B client, which is significant for interpreting the metrics.)

Sunlab has been managing the customer's Google Ads account since the spring of 2022, measuring success based on the number of leads generated through Universal Analytics events. As of  July 1, 2023, Universal Analytics is officially being replaced by Google Analytics 4, necessitating a transition in the tracking setup.

Moreover, data privacy is a significant concern for the client. Universal Analytics has been under continuous  scrutiny regarding data protection laws. The shift to Google Analytics 4 is particularly beneficial in this regard. Therefore, our recommendation was to switch directly to a server-side GA4 solution as part of this necessary transition.

To ensure maximum security in terms of data quality and data privacy in the future while still being able to utilize the most powerful website tracking tool, the logical choice was to opt for a server-side GA4 solution.

Both the client-side and server-side GA4 tags are, of course, linked to the user's cookie consent. It's worth highlighting that the use of our own tracking URL in combination with the Google Cloud Server, and the resulting transformation of the analytics tag from a third-party cookie to a first-party cookie, data quality has improved by approximately 10 %. This means that relevant browser extensions and other third-party cookie-blocking tools are bypassed. 

For a B2C client, this effect might be even more significant.