Google Floodlight tags

This article is for developers who want to move Floodlight tags from a Tag Manager web container into a server container.

Server-side Tag Manager allows you to move your Google Floodlight sales and counter tags from the web page to the server. Moving these tags to the server will reduce the amount of code you have to run in the page, and helps improve page load times.

Before you begin

Before you can move tags into your server, make sure that you have:

Admin access to Google Tag Manager and Floodlight
Set up and installed Google Tag Manager
Set up a server container
Set up the Google Analytics: GA4 client

Step 1: Set up the Conversion Linker tag

Your Floodlight account can only send conversion data to Google Tag Manager when you have set up a Conversion Linker tag.

If you already have a Conversion Linker tag configured in your server container, you can skip this step.

To set up the Conversion Linker tag:

From your server container workspace, open the Tags menu on the left side of the page.
Click New to add a new tag.
Select the Conversion Linker tag type.
Set up the trigger that will cause the Conversion Linker server-side tag to fire.
In most cases, the All pages trigger is the best option.
Name the tag and click Save.

Step 2: Set up Floodlight tags

Google Tag Manager supports Floodlight Counter tags and Floodlight Sales tags in the server container.

Floodlight Counter

To set up a Floodlight Counter tag:

In your server container workspace, select the Tags menu on the left side of the page.
Click New to add a new tag.
Select the Floodlight Counter tag type.
To gather the values required for tag configuration, open another browser window and sign in to Campaign Manager 360. Click Advertisers, and then click the name of the advertiser. Enter these values in your new Tag Manager Floodlight Counter tag:
- Advertiser ID: The Advertiser ID will appear on the advertiser details page just below the advertiser's name. This value is also found as the value of src= in a generated Floodlight tag snippet.
- Group Tag String: In the Activity table, identify the activity you want to work with and find the group tag string listed in a column to the right. This is also found as the value of type= in a generated Floodlight tag snippet.
- Activity Tag String: In the Activity table, identify the activity you want to work with and find the activity tag string listed in a column to the right. This is also found as the value of cat= in a generated Floodlight tag snippet.
Set the desired Counting Method:
- Standard: Counts every conversion.
- Unique: Counts the first conversion for each unique user during each 24-hour day, from midnight to midnight, Eastern Time (US).
- Per session: Counts one conversion per user per session. Session length is set by the site where the Floodlight tag is deployed.
Open the Choose a trigger window.
In the Trigger configuration menu, select a trigger. In most cases, the All Pages is the best option.
Enter a tag name and click Save.

Floodlight Sales

To set up a Floodlight Sales tag:

In your server container workspace, select the Tags menu on the left side of the page.
Click New to add a new tag.
Select the Floodlight Sales tag type. Note: The Floodlight Sales tag automatically collects the following values automatically from the corresponding ecommerce field:
```
*   Order ID (Transaction ID)
*   Revenue (Value)
```
To gather the values required for tag configuration, open another browser window and sign in to Campaign Manager 360. Click Advertisers, and then click the name of the advertiser. Enter these values in your new Tag Manager Floodlight Counter tag:
- Advertiser ID: The Advertiser ID will appear on the advertiser details page just below the advertiser's name. This value is also found as the value of src= in a generated Floodlight tag snippet.
- Group Tag String: In the Activity table, identify the activity you want to work with and find the group tag string listed in a column to the right. This is also found as the value of type= in a generated Floodlight tag snippet.
- Activity Tag String: In the Activity table, identify the activity you want to work with and find the activity tag string listed in a column to the right. This is also found as the value of cat= in a generated Floodlight tag snippet.
Set the desired Counting Method:
- Standard: Counts every conversion.
- Unique: Counts the first conversion for each unique user during each 24-hour day, from midnight to midnight, Eastern Time (US).
- Per session: Counts one conversion per user per session. Session length is set by the site where the Floodlight tag is deployed.
Open the Choose a trigger window.
In the Trigger configuration menu, select a trigger. In most cases, the All Pages is the best option.
Enter a tag name and click Save.

Optional: Set up Enhanced Conversions

If you don't use Enhanced Conversions, skip ahead to Validate your setup.

To configure Enhanced Conversions follow the steps below.

Set up a user-provided data variable

There are 3 ways in which you can implement enhanced conversions in Tag Manager. You only need to choose one option to collect user-provided data.

	Automatic collection	Manual configuration	Code configuration
Collection method	Automatically collects user-provided data based on the code of your website. If you need control over where to collect inputs, opt for a manual or code setup.	Specify select CSS properties or JavaScript variables to collect user-provided data. If you need to take control over data formatting and hashing, opt for code configuration.	Add a code snippet on your website that sends hashed customer data for matching. This method is the best choice for maximizing the accuracy of enhanced conversions by letting you send consistently formatted data whenever your conversion tag fires.
Complexity	Simple	Medium	Complex
Skills	No special skills needed	HTML and CSS	Web development

Automatic collection

In your web container, open the Variables menu.
Create a new User-Defined Variable of the type User-Provided Data.
Set the Type to Automatic collection.
Name the variable, for example, My user-defined data.
Click Save.

Manual configuration

In your web container, open the Variables menu.
Create a new User-Defined Variable of the type User-Provided Data.
Set the Type to Manual configuration.
For the relevant user data field that you would like to provide via enhanced conversions, add a new or existing variable.

Note: If you already have variables in your data layer (whether using CSS selectors or other variable types), you can select those instead of creating new variables. If you aren't sure, continue through the instructions. The variables may be hashed or unhashed.
To specify an element from the DOM, create a New Variable > Variable Configuration > DOM Element.
Under Selection Method, you can either use a CSS Selector or ID. Tip: If your CSS variables change frequently, add an HTML ID to your site and use the ID variable.
Enter the CSS selector or ID name. You can leave the Attribute name field blank.
Name and Save the DOM Element variable. Your screen will then return to the User-Provided Data settings.
Name the User-Provided Data variable, for example, My user-defined data.
Click Save.

Code configuration

Step 1: Identify and define your enhanced conversions variables

You can either send unhashed data, which Google will hash before the data reaches the servers, or pre-hashed data. If you decide to send pre-hashed data, please encode the data using hex-encoded SHA256. In either case, provide at least one of the following fields: email or phone_ number.
To push unhashed data to the data layer:

On your website, store user-provided data as key-value pairs in a JavaScript variable. For example:

var leadsUserData = {
  'email': 'name@example.com',
  'phone_number': '+11234567890',
  'address': {
    first_name: 'John',
    last_name: 'Doe',
    street: '123 Lemon',
    city: 'Some city',
    region: 'CA',
    country: 'US',
    postal_code: '12345',
  },
};

Send the user data together with an event using dataLayer.push(). For example:

<script>
  dataLayer.push({
    'event': 'formSubmitted',
    'leadsUserData': {
      'email': 'name@example.com',
      'phone_number': '+11234567890',
      'address': {
         first_name: 'John',
         last_name: 'Doe',
         street: '123 Lemon',
         city: 'Some city',
         region: 'CA',
         country: 'US',
        postal_code: '12345',
       },
     },
  });
<script>

The variable leadsUserData is now available in Google Tag Manager.

To push pre-hashed data to the data layer:

On your website, hash user-provided using hex-encoded SHA256. The key for encoded data needs to start with sha256_. For example:
```
{'sha256_email_address':await hashEmail(email.trim()),
}
```

Send the user data together with an event using dataLayer.push(). The example below shows a data layer implementation that assumes you have written a hashing function yourself, which you run asynchronously.

<script>
  dataLayer.push({
    'event': 'formSubmitted',
    'leadsUserData': {
      'sha256_email_address': await hashEmail(email.trim()),
      'sha256_phone_number': await hashPhoneNumber(phoneNumber),
      'address': {
        sha265_first_name: await hashString(firstname),
        sha256_last_name: await hashString(lastname),
        sha256_street: await hashString(streetAddress),
        postal_code: '12345',
       },
     },
  });
<script>

The variable leadsUserData is now available in Google Tag Manager.

Step 2: Create the user-provided data variable

In your web container, open the Variables menu.
Create a new User-Defined Variable of the type User-Provided Data.
Set the Type to Code.
For the relevant user data field you want to provide, click the drop-down menu and select New Variable.
Under Choose Variable Type, select Data Layer Variable.
In the Data Layer Variable, reference your stored user data. For example, leadsUserData.
Name and Save the Data Layer variable. Your screen will then return to the User-Provided Data settings.
Name the User-Provided Data variable, for example, My user-defined data.
Click Save.

Assign the variable to the Google tag

In your web container, open the Tags menu.
Edit the Google tag you use to send data to the tagging server.
Under Configuration settings, add a new Configuration parameter called user_data. Set the Value to the User-provided Data variable, for example, {{My user-provided data}}.
Save your changes. Your tag should look like this:

Configure server-side Floodlight tag

In your server container enable Enhanced Conversions by setting up the Floodlight Sales or Floodlight Counter tag.

alt_text

User-provided data lets you improve the accuracy of your measurement by sending hashed first-party user-provided data from your website. To implement this, you need to agree to the user-provided data terms and policies in your Search Ads 360 account first.

If you want to include user-provided data for enhanced conversions for web, Personally Identifiable Information (PII) should be sent from the website (client-side container), which is, in turn, dispatched by server-side container. If you don't want the PII to be dispatched by a specific tag, use "Transformations" to redact the PII for the selected tags.

Optional: Revenue Value

The Floodlight Sales tag uses the event's value parameter as the default amount to calculate revenue. To specify a different basis to calculate the revenue value, you need to set up a variable to pull data from your database in and assign it to your Floodlight Sales tag.

To create a new variable:

In your server container, open the Variables menu.
Create a new user-defined variable for the data input. For example, if you want to use a value from a Firestore database, create a {{Firestore Lookup}} variable.
Specify the data sources for the variable.
Name the variable, for example, "Profit lookup" and Save it.

To use the variable in the Floodlight Sales tag:

In your server container, open the Tags menu.
Edit the Floodlight Sales tag.
In the Unique Parameters section:
- For Data Source, pick Custom configuration.
- For Revenue, select the variable you've created before.
- For Order ID, enter an ID or use a variable to dynamically populate the order ID.
Save the tag.

Optional: Custom parameters

You can pass custom fields from your web page to the Google Marketing Platform, such as match_id.

Google Tag Manager

To configure custom fields for Floodlight, prepend x-dc- to a parameter name:

In your web container, open the Tags menu.
Edit a GA4 Event tag or create a new one.
In Event Parameters, add the parameter name. To signal that it goes to Floodlight, prepend x-dc-. For example, if you would normally send match_id, change it to x-dc-match_id.
Save the tag.

gtag.js

To configure custom fields for Floodlight, prepend x-dc- to the event parameter name:

  gtag('event', 'purchase', {
      'x-dc-match_id': [MATCH_ID],
      ...
  })

Step 3: Validate your setup

Once you start sending data with the server container, you can check to see if it’s working properly by following these steps:

Open your website.
In your Google Tag Manager server container, select Preview. Tag Assistant will start and load your server container.
The Tags tab shows you all tags that have fired. Make sure to check if the tag you configured fired.
The Console tab shows any errors that occurred during the data transmission to the server container. Check for errors and resolve them.

For more help with debugging Tag Manager containers see preview and debug help.

Next steps

Once your Floodlight tag works as intended, you can remove any equivalent Floodlight tags in a web container to avoid data duplication.