[2023] How To Set Up Facebook Conversion API w/ Google Tag Manager (Server-Side) 

I have paid for a in depth course on CAPI with around 4 or 5 hours of content for a step by step installation. This is better

Big update: for everyone getting stuck at the GA4 Basic when adding the new subdomain server side tracking.. When you are at the GA4 Basic settings go to Configuration setting -> Add parameter - > type in "url" and something like "server_container_url" will pop up. Select it -> add in the value next to it your custom stape subdomain URL

Could you please make a detailed video like that one where you show how to send _fbc, _fbp, client_user_agent and all that juicy stuff using Adsmurai template? It is hard to grasp the concept of using Google Analytics to send data to Facebook CAPI.

Hello Cedric, at 30:59 you mentioned about the GA4 configuration tag, but i don't see it in my account, seems it is now called Google Tag. How to send GA4 data to stape under Google Tag?

Hi, thanks so much for your video. I followed the step and downloaded the template. However, when I imported it to my GTM, I couldn't see any triggers or variables.

"In early September 2023, Google retired the Google Analytics 4 configuration tag. It is now replaced by a new tag template called Google Tag. Together with this update, Google also introduced two new variables: Configuration Settings Variable and Event Settings Variable." This seems to be a breaking change in this video. Now in "G4 Basic" you have to add the configuration variable and call it "server_container_url" to point to the tagging server URL.

Yeah, just like macmagx said. The user variables are not the same in the file. Also a ton of them aren't recognized by GTM so I can't update the container

Hi, I've set it all up like you showed except when I preview it, its not triggering on the server side. I can see my ss. domain name in the bar facebook is receiving events but only browser events. I set it up to trigger on Client name equals GA4 like the video. It's all working web side but I'm not getting anything server side. Any help would be appreciated

Hey mate, the tutorial does not work anymore. YOu can only upload the file for a web based container, in which you do not have the "send to server" option.

Hi Cedric, Thanks. Very useful and in depth explanation. You should add the information that one has to add the "field... "transport_url...to his GA site tag more prominently as it won't work otherwise . See also comments below.

I'm the only one who doesn't have "Send to server container" checkbox and "server URL" field? I saw this everywhere, but I can't make it show up on my GTM. Not even after uploading your template. Do you have any advice? GA4 Configuration tag was removed a few months ago. GA4 event tag doesn't have that.

It seems we're now using GTM vs GTA4 now correct? So under GA4-Basic I should enter the GTM ID now and not the GA4 stream, correct?

For a purchase, what is the eventID?! As in, what value is coming over from my store?

Great video though. I saw you sending events to the server container. If the events e.g. the page_view doesn't show in the debug view in Google Analytics, does it still work? I managed to get it done the same way you present it in your video but I cannot see the server events comming through. The Analytics tag fires on the server but no event showing in the debug view. If install a Analytics Browser Tag then it works. Am I missing anything here? Can you give me any advice about this?

The "Send to server container" is not showing anymore, do you have any alternative to that?

The json download does not match the video. All of the FB tags have 12345 hard coded instead of using a variable. In your video you have 9 custom variables. When I imported the template it only added 2: "EventID" and "timestamp in seconds". I'm guessing you have changed the download since you made this video or you didn't update the json for this vide. I do notice that my download says ver 2 and is dated 2021-10-28 Do you have a video that matches this download or a download that matches this video? I was able to add 2 new variables and modify the json and put {{Facebook Pixel ID}} and {{GA4 ID}} in place of "12345" and "GA123"

Hey Cedric, does it work without Google Analytics? Because I don't want to use Google Analytics.

I have this setup on 2 websites, seemingly the same way. For one website, the pixel is deduplicating the server events and processing the browser events. On the other, the pixel is deduplicating the browser events and processing the server events. Any idea what might cause this? I would prefer to process browser events and deduplicate server events in both instances.

Anyone have the facebook event manager issue: "Send IPv6 for PageView events. Change IPv4 addresses for PageView events to IPv6 and send them to Conversions API to get additional conversions reported" Same issue comes up for all lead events etc. Wonder if anyone knows exactly how to change IPv4 events to IPv6??

My GTM contains a Google Tag running with GA4 measurement ID (G-XXXX), which was tracking page views and other events accurately. while implementing the Facebook Conversion API, I added another Google Tag using the same measurement ID. Now, 90% of my sessions are being marked as 'unassigned.' How can I resolve this issue? Please help

Hi Cedric, When I returned (after setting up my SS container) to configure the GA4-Basic tag, the option 'send to server container' was no longer available? The tagtype has changed to 'google-tag' instead of GA4 configuration. I imported the json template again, but it has still changed. What should I do? Last but not least: thank you very much for taking the time to make this very informational video.

I started doing things differently, choosing the name options that are already pre-configured by Facebook (e.g. country, city, email, telephone, etc.). I did it on GTM Server. Some parameters are missing for Page View and View Content events. Can I insert them into the list by doing it the way you show in this video, using nomenclature like "user_data_email_adress"? Thank you.

Thanks for the video! When I imported the container I was missing the custom variables you reference in the video. Instead I had a facebook pixel template. It had some of the same stuff, but not exactly the same. Was this updated in your template?

Hi Cedric. I found your video in December '23. I got the link to the server but not the template. Is it anyway you could send the template again? Thanks.

At 9:09 you stated that {{Unique Event ID}} is something very important when it comes to deduplication. I would love to know how can I have that setup if I only use custom HTML to install the pixel base code and standard events?

Thanks for the video, I have implemented this but i have an issue, the click ID, fbc seems to be returning undefined and this is affecting the event matching in Events Manager. Any help will be highly appreciated

I followed all the steps and everything seems to work except the deduplication part. Sometimes the event is detected and deduplicated and sometimes not. I don't understand what is the problem and doublechecked everything already so many times :(

Any plans to get a 2024 updateds version? GA4 Configuration tags are no longer named that, and the ney "Google Tag" does not have a "Send event to server" field.

Adding the cname record with this new setup won't crash my website? I ask because in your 2022 video with using the google server setup, you instruct not to add the cname record. Also please provide the link for buying you a virtual cup of coffee.👍

At 7:55 do you mean the Pixel-ID (Now Dataset ID) or a script?

Isn't it easier doing it from Facebook Integrations Partner? Or is this method better?

​ @VertexMarketingAgency I am at 31:09 'Server Container URL'... This option no longer exist as the tag is now just 'Google Tag' and not a GA4 configuration tag. Where do we add the server URL?

Hey Great video! I have one quick question regarding Stape So if I am managing advertising for multiple clients will I need create different Stape accounts where each client has their own Stape account that they each individually pay for and I just gain like shared access to that account in order to start implementing the tracking? or do I just create like a sub account in my own Stape account and every client is under one kind of "agency" account? Hope my question makes sense!

Great video, thanks a lot Cedric :) One question: I had three separate B2B lead gen events (meeting booked, contact form, SaaS platform sign up) setup in GA4 before starting this server-side setup. After finishing the setup with basic page-view standard events, I started working on the above and thought that since facebook ads only allows you to optimize lead gen campagns for one event, it would be cool if all three triggers for the B2B valuable actions were recognized as the same Lead standard event. The thing is that I've seen all my previous GA4 events getting passed to the server now which means I should try to avoid sending duplicated events (3 previous GA4 B2B events + another GA4 event with all the 3 actions triggers to pass the info as the same event to the server) that result more hits to the server and getting charged more. I don't want to lose GA4 separate B2B events for each of the three actions for reporting purposes, so how can I maintain those 3 separate GA4 events, but trigger one Facebook tag standard event conversion if those GA4 tags have custom names and not one of the equivalence Google Analytics ones that facebook recognizes as a standard? Thanks a ton!

31:05 option is now disabled in Google. Can't find it and I'm lost.

Do you have to send the unique eventId also with the other FB Pixel Tags like Purchase or just with the Main Facebook Pixel?

Hi, first of all, thank you very much for the helpful tutorial! 🫶 I have 3 questions regarding this setup: 1. Have I understood the SS-GTM structure correctly that I just use ONE client (GA4) + Trigger, and then separate Tags in the SS Container for the various marketing platforms? = One Tag for CAPI, one Tag for GA4, one for G-Ads,.... ? 2. Is it possible to use custom event names (not limited to standard names like Pageview, AddToCart, etc.) in this setup, or am I restricted to the event names provided by Meta/Google? 3. I am not quite sure whether to set up the tagging server with Stape or Google Cloud Run. Could you advise on the level of website traffic required for Google Cloud Run to be more cost-effective than Stape? Thank you very much!

Quick question. I have same configuration as you. But what about facebook pixel. Is already added to website or only CAPI is added? How does it work? In events manager I can see I have current integration - pixel and capi. But I didn't added pixel to site. I did everything as you.

I understand that we are using browser tracking as well as server side tracking here for Facebook and deduplicating via the unique ID that they both share. I'm then stumbling at the bit where we push GA4 data. Are we doing this server-side only as the GA4 tag is only set to send data to the Server container. Or should I have duplicate web-based events in the web container that sends events directly to GA4 too which is also deduplicated? Very helpful so far though - thank you.

I installed the pixel via the Meta application on Shopify and set the Data Sharing Maximum? Why is it better to do the Facebook server-side installation with GTM? Super interesting content, thanks!

Thank you for this great video! Everything worked perfectly until next day when the server container suddenly isn't receiving anything more. It worked with the new "server_container_url" and just stopped...after a few hours I received a request and then nothing again. I have nooo idea what to do, so it will work immediately and every time. Has anyone an idea? 😥

If we are using the more up-to-date Google Tag settings in GTM, do we need to set up a dedicated Data Stream in GA4 for this? I am seeing these events tracked in GA4. Also, I am not seeing conversion events tracked in the FB event manager, I can see the event tracked by the pixel, but not server. Am I missing something? Thanks

Not sure why you didn't remove the TEST EVENT from the facebook API tag when you were done with the setup. Is it ok to leave it there? is it necessary?

How is it possible I can see the changes made on my part, or pay a freelancer to do everything, the CAPI of google tag manager and google analytics all the manual settings, he sends me photos of the work and I see that it is my pixel, but when I check it myself, there's nothing there. when he make call and share the screen and i see al the work he done. could be because i'm a mac user? and he have a windows ?

I'm curious how to send the lead event through serverside also. All I am getting are the standard GA4 events, but my lead is triggered by a custom trigger from a datalayer - how does that get sent via server side as well? Thank you.

I didn't understand what to put in the - {{Order Total **Update After Import**}} for facebook. how do I get this info?

Great video! For the FB tags in GTM, do we need to select the LDU option to avoid compliance issues or does tracking server side avoid these anyway?

heads up: only 2 user defined variables upload to GTM when you use your json file

Hello! I have been trying to automatically send the city of the contact that fills out a form. Is there any code required to do this? I know you need to have this parameter in gtm: user_data.address.city but i don't know how to make it work Can you help me?

If we already have Google Analytics 4 configuration installed before applying the template you provided, do we need to delete it?

hi there - thanks for sharing this. But how you can pass user data to the Purchase event ? one thing is passing info in the normal DL - but another thing is passing those in the Purchase event. thanks for any insight

Hi, thank you very much for the video. 1 question - what is the advantage of having pixel in browser GTM and server GTM? Why not to have FB tags only in server GTM?

I am doing a course on FB ads. I watch all your videos. It gives me a lot of extra information.

Hello Cedric, can i export my data from the conversion API to my Google BigQuery?

How do I filter out GA4 events that I do not want to send to conversion API. As at the moment every event is sent to Facebook and GA4 both

How to fire lead event?

Before you start using the template you have to change the unique id variable to the new version!!!

On the GA4 Basic Tag it's doesn't show me the option to click "send to server container"

Unfortunately it seems that the link to get the template it doesnt work anymore, when i insert my details it keeps load on infinite...

I am having this pixel code error. Where can I find how to remove this extra event from my pixel? currently using GTM server container with FB CAPI both through Stape after watching this video and using the JSON template. This is the mysterious event ID showing up as extra pageviews that are not de duplicating. Please help me remove this or understand where it's coming from. Event ID: ob3_plugin-set_e6c96308cc32e8c84e3a139088fa9359bb3807fcc7b12ee0a81da31c21cc1e55

Hi Cedric, Thanks for your great video! I have a question for you. A new Google tag sends page_view events with the same event_id which causes incorrect deduplication. How can it be fixed?

your file doesn't work, it said invalid format

Thanks' a lot for this video. It has been super useful. I've just a problem with deduplication when I send user data (email, first name, last name, all hashed): if I DON'T send user data nor by pixel neither by server deduplication works. If I send user data through pixel a NOT through the server, deduplication works too. But if I send user data through server, regardless if I send them or not through pixel, deduplication stops working. It's a simple pageview event, but is making me crazy. Thank you if you can help!

Hello there, I installed your container and i found that the {{FBC}} and the {{FBP}} variables are missing. Would you be so kind and tell how do you get them? With js or from dataLayer? With js like this? fbq('track', 'PageView', {'fbc': {{FBC Cookie}}} , {'eventID': {{Event ID}}} );

yeh dont work for me only page views fires which is odd

where is GCLID?

Hi Cedric - awesome video! Just want to check if this method still works with the new Google Tag? Or is there a workaround for this..

Can someone share the gtm container which was mentioned here? I cant get an access to this container even I ve alredy registered

GA4 Configurations has change to tags how to do that bit ad a parameter and put server_container_url then stape sub domain ?

Hi Cedric, thanks for this video. However, one question regarding to the "unique event ID" - you metioned it is coming by default. I do not have it. Where can I get it from? Thanks for your feedback!

on testing my purchase is not getting dedupicated ,can you help me with this

Thank you very much Cedric for this video! I have a problem with your template, I only got the welcome email from Stape, I checked the spam box too. There is a second email missing where I could download the template. Thank you!

Gated content :(

Very helpful video. Thank you.

Thanks. If I´m going to set up FB`s conversions API with GTM, is it neccesary to create a FB Pixel tag on GTM for tracking with the pixel? I mean instead of setting up the pixel directly on the website?

file dosent download 😢😢😢

Thanks for the video :) When I filled the form, I received an email with a link to 2 files about TikTok not Facebook Could you please send me the good link? thanks a lot

Will this apply for woOCommerce also?

Hi Cedric, Thanks for the video. I can't import the json file and it says the file is incompatible. Do you have the updated version of the file?

Hey there. I get the following message Containeren for import is not compatible with the actual container. Not sure if I did anything wrong on my end. I hope you can help..

Hello I would like to know if I can do this on my web page, because mine is the game web H5

Thank you so much, man. you are a life saver

You can only use Stape if you have VAT ID. Otherwise you cant use their services. It won’t allow you to create an Billing account

When I turn on ad-blockers, I see my server event going through to Meta as expected. But for some reason 100% of these events say "de-duplicated" even though there is no cookie event. Why are ALL my server events marked as de-duplicated?

Hi, Thanks a lot for the video! I am stuck with a lead event. It worked for a few times but now it doesn't. The event does not get sent anymore to the server container. Do you have any idea what it could be?

Thank you for the video So when you set this up is it essentially the same thing as the lead attribution services like Hyros and Anytrack...? Meaning that this'll help with retargeting and such

Hi, Thanks for the fantastic video! I'm in turmoil and hope you can help me. My GTM container already has a GA4 configuration tag with a measurement Id and a "purchase" event that sends data to GA4. My question is: Should I modify the existing GA4 configuration Tag and add the server URL or make a new GA4 configuration where I should add the stape server URL and a dummy measurement ID? Because the end goal is to send the same event to FB conversion API. I learnt from the video that deduplication is essential, so I am asking this and also don't want to send additional info to GA4 like event_id and other fields under "Fields to set". I appreciate any help you can provide.

can i use my server in Hosinger?

Can you help me locate your video regarding setup for customer information data parameters?

Does this process help FB accounts optimise for more accurate customer targeting, for higher conversions ??

nice helped out a ton. from the image it looks like there are only 9 GA4 tags that have a corresponding facebook event. what about custom events? how do you track those through ga4 and CAPI?

Is it a good idea or unnecessary redundancy to also place the pixel code on a webpage/website even after setting up the Conversion API with GTM for browser and server-side tracking?

Sincere sincere thanks for this.

How does one save as a JSON file? I can open in google docs but how to save???

Is it possible to set up server side tracking for a booking calendar in a website ?

Hey mate, thanks for the tutorial. Would like to clarify if this would work if my website is built with Squarespace but has GTM installed? Thanks!

Thank you very much, everything's working fine but I've just got one tiny problem: I've got a "scroll" event being sent via the server every time in addition to the "pageview". I can't figure out where this is coming from?

Brilliant video! Thank you very much!

Thanks for your great content. Your description is very clear an helpful. So I wonder how to create a GA4 event for the facebook standard Event SubmitApplication. I would be thankful for your help.

Hello Cedric, I wanted to express my gratitude for your tutorials. They were immensely helpful, and after working on it for three days, I was able to achieve the correct setup. However, there's still one question that I haven't been able to find an answer to. I followed your tutorial precisely to set everything up, but I've encountered an issue. The server container seems to be generating and transmitting two of the same kind of event (e.g. ATC) instead of just one as intended. Upon inspecting the Events Manager, I noticed that there are two events being triggered by the Server for every single event. One of the ATC events has six parameters associated with it in the events manager: value, currency, content_type, contents, content_name, and content_category. I'm wondering what might be causing this unexpected behavior. Could it potentially be related to the stape-io FB CAPI template? Just to clarify, I'm using Stape as the Server Side. Your insights would be highly appreciated, as getting an answer would greatly help me finalize the setup. Thank you so much once again!