Client-side or server-side: how to choose the right conversion goal type

Conversion goals let you measure the most important actions performed by your contacts and understand which communications, landing pages, and other magnews assets contributed to the result. Learn more about conversion goals.

Choose how to record conversions

You can record a conversion in two ways:

• From your website (client-side): magnews records the conversion through scripts installed on your website. The action takes place while the visitor is browsing, for example when they download a document, add a product to the cart, or make a purchase on an eCommerce website.
• From a data table (server-side): magnews identifies conversions using data already available in a data table. The conversion data is already stored in magnews, for example eCommerce orders, donations, or event attendance.

Client-side goals

Client-side conversion goals goals record conversions that take place on your website or eCommerce, such as a purchase, a resource download, or the start of the checkout process.

To track these actions, you need an active web property. The web property generates a code snippet to add to your website and allows magnews to associate actions performed while browsing with the visitor, the contact, and the assets they interacted with.

When the visitor completes the action you want to measure, the conversion script records the event. This lets you understand not only how many conversions you receive, but also which communications, landing pages, or on-site messages contributed to them.

To configure a client-side goal:

• You need a web property with the option to track conversions enabled (read the dedicated article).
• Add the code provided by the web property to your website.
• On the page or at the point where the action is completed, add the conversion script after the web property code.

These goals are ideal for tracking any valuable action that takes place on your website or eCommerce. For example, to measure purchases, you can add the conversion script to the order confirmation page. To measure a white paper download, add it at the point where the file becomes available.

Tracking, however, depends on what the visitor’s browser allows you to record and on the cookie and tracking preferences applied on the website. If the web property code or conversion script is not executed, magnews cannot detect the conversion or associate it with the visitor’s previous journey.

Learn more about how to configure a client-side conversion goal.

Server-side goals

Server-side goals are based on the fact that, in many cases, the data that determines a conversion is already available in magnews. Examples include a contact’s order history for purchases or event attendance for B2B registrations.

When this data is available in magnews, provided through a standard connector or a custom integration such as an API, you can overcome the limitations of client-side tracking and work directly with structured data to calculate conversions and their attribution to assets.

To create a server-side conversion goal, you need four key pieces of information stored in a magnews data table:

• The association field that links the conversion to the contact.
• The conversion identifier, such as the order ID.
• The date when the conversion occurred, such as the order date.
• The monetary value of the conversion, if you want to measure its value.

After configuring the data table and calculation frequency, magnews identifies new conversions and calculates their attribution values.

This type of goal is also suitable for conversions that do not take place on a website, such as an in-store purchase, a donation recorded in your CRM, or attendance at an event.

Learn more about how to configure a server-side conversion goal.

Main differences

Server-side goals offer several advantages over client-side goals, including:

• Greater reliability: server-side tracking is more accurate because it is based on structured data.
• Easier configuration: it does not require scripts on your website and can be configured directly in magnews.
• Omnichannel tracking: it can track actions outside the web, such as in-store purchases or activity in a mobile app.
• Historical data recovery: you can regenerate past conversions at any time.
• Independent of visitor choices: it does not depend on whether the visitor accepts cookies, unlike client-side goals.

However, bringing structured conversion data into magnews is not always possible or worthwhile. For actions such as adding a product to the cart or downloading a white paper, client-side goals may be the better choice.

In general, when the required data is available in magnews, server-side goals are preferable. For micro-conversions, client-side goals are a good alternative.

Goal examples

Here are some examples of how you can track different use cases.

E-commerce

In the most classic cases, the most valuable actions that are interesting to track in your e-commerce are:

• Purchase: as this is the most important action, it is advisable to configure it as a server-side goal, if the order history is available
• Start checkout: this action, although important, is not of great value as structured data on magnews, so it is sufficient to track it as a client-side goal
• Addition to cart: as for start checkout, the client-side type is suggested.

Non-profit

In the non-profit sphere, the most valuable actions that can be tracked and attributed to different campaigns are:

• Donation: server-side, being often the most important action
• Long-distance adoption: server-side, also being a very important action
• Signing petition: server-side, if the data is present on magnews; otherwise client-side.

B2B

In the B2B sphere, the most valuable actions can be traced and attributed to the different actions carried out with magnews:

• Quote request: server-side, being a very important action
• Demo: server-side, if the data is present on magnews; otherwise client-side
• Download: client-side, as it is a simple and easy-to-trace action.