Server-side tracking is the practice of sending analytics + advertising events from your backend (not the user's browser) to platforms like Meta, Google Ads, GA4, and TikTok. It's the architectural answer to browser-side signal loss from iOS 14.5+, cookie deprecation, and ad-blockers.
The dominant 2026 pattern: a server-side Google Tag Manager (sGTM) container hosted on Vercel or Cloud Run receives client-side events from a regular GTM container, enriches them server-side, and dispatches to multiple destinations.
For brands above Rs 20 crore ARR, server-side tracking is no longer optional. See our server-side tracking reference architecture for deployment shapes + monitoring discipline.