Overview

Server-Side Tracking is cutting edge. As we all learn more about the API tracking world, here's some 'gotchas' that our team's learned.

Google Analytic's Gotchas

Offline Orders (e.g. Draft Orders, POS Orders) will show a Landing Page of the Order Confirmation. Since there is no browsing session associated with these orders, if you choose to send them to GA4, the landing page will be the order confirmation page.
Offline Orders (e.g. Draft Orders, POS Orders) won't have First User or Session Source / Medium values in GA4. This is due to the fact that there is no session associated with these orders. If you apply source/medium overrides, this will only impact the "Source/Medium" value in GA4. Not the First User or Session Source/Mediums.

Product Type (or Product Category) data will be missing. Order data in Shopify doesn't have Product Category populated, so our GA4 Server-Side Integration isn't able to send Product Category data. Not to worry! You can Import Product Category Data to GA4 instead.

This is because Upscribe overwrites our Order Notes (needed for server-side attribution) when they create orders in Shopify. However, client-side tracking works in the Upscribe checkout. Checkout our full list of integrations that work with Elevar.

If you are running Dyanmic Product Ads in Criteo, we recommend using client-side tracking. DPA ads use third party cookies and view-through conversions for attribution. Server-side tracking tracks click-based conversions. Therefore if you are using DPA ads in Criteo, use client-side tracking.

In Pinterest's Deduplication report, if an event has a low volume (e.g. a "site search" event) Pinterest will show a warning about deduplication. There likely isn't a problem with deduplication, Pinterest just doesn't have a large enough sample size for that specific event. When you make your date frame larger (after running Pinterest CAPI for a bit of time), you will notice warnings go away. When you make your date frame a single day, you may notice more warnings.