Question from user:
Pre-series startup in the AI space.
I am desperately in need of guidance. Our stats show that our Google Ads are effective, but when you look in Google Analytics, a lot of the sales show as “Direct Traffic” and not PPC.
I realize that this is probably because of iOS14.5 update, and this traffic is likely from phones or browsers that don’t allow tracking back to the originating source ad.
It is a top priority for the executive team because we can’t make decisions about scaling up the campaigns until we solve this issue. We’re doing 25% month-over-month growth, but several members of the team want to pull back on the ad spending because of this single stupid problem.
Questions:
- Can I hire someone to figure this out?
- Would that person be a financial analyst, developer, ad buyer? Someone else?
- Is there a third-party tool that can connect the dots?
Any help is appreciated!
Answer from Nabil:
The short answer is:
Yes, you absolutely can and should hire someone to solve this critical attribution problem, which is a common post-iOS 14.5 and general browser tracking challenge.
The incorrect attribution of your effective Google Ads revenue to the Direct channel in GA4 is stifling your growth decision-making.
The best solution is a technical one that moves your data collection from the unreliable client-side to a server-side framework.
This involves sending data from Google Tag Manager (GTM) to a server-side container hosted on a platform like Stape or Google Cloud Platform, using the Measurement Protocol, and then enriching that data by correlating it with campaign information retrieved via the Google Ads API and your own GA4 data using the Google Analytics Data API.
The long answer is:
Your situation is unfortunately typical for high-growth, modern companies dealing with increased data privacy restrictions, like those introduced by iOS 14.5’s App Tracking Transparency and various browser Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) features, which actively restrict third-party cookies and shorten the lifespan of first-party cookies.
When a user clicks your ad but their browser or device blocks the transmission of the Google Click ID (gclid) or your custom UTM parameters on the landing page, GA4 can’t make the attribution, and the session defaults to the Direct channel.
The fact that the executive team is considering pulling back on effective ad spend due to a data problem, not a performance problem, makes solving this a top priority.
You need to implement a robust, server-side tracking solution.
This shifts the tracking burden from the user’s browser, which is heavily restricted, to a reliable server that you control.
To do this, you’d begin by using your existing GTM setup, but instead of sending data directly to Google Analytics (GA4), you would send it to a server-side container hosted on a platform like Stape or Google Cloud Platform.
This is done via a first-party context, making the data more resilient to browser restrictions.
This server-side environment is where you will leverage the power of APIs.
The Google Ads API can be used to pull detailed, cost-related, and campaign performance data directly from your Google Ads account, providing the authoritative source of truth for your ad clicks and their associated gclid or campaign IDs.
The Google Analytics Data API allows you to programmatically access your existing GA4 data, including the Direct traffic sessions you’re trying to re-attribute, which can be useful for analysis and cross-validation.
By feeding server-side events, like purchase or generate_lead, to your server container and enriching them with the reliable campaign data retrieved from the Google Ads API, you can force the correct attribution upon sending the final data to GA4 via the Measurement Protocol.
This correlation work must be handled by a specialized developer or a technical marketer, making your hiring decision crucial.
Regarding who to hire, you are looking for a hybrid role.
A Technical Marketing Analyst or a Data Engineer specializing in Marketing Technology is the best fit.
This person needs to be proficient with GTM, GA4’s data layer, the Measurement Protocol, server-side tagging (Stape or GCP), and critically, API integration.
They are a developer who understands marketing attribution.
A financial analyst would be great for reporting but can’t build the fix.
An ad buyer understands the campaigns but likely lacks the necessary back-end development skills.
You need the technical implementation expert first.
As for third-party tools, while many paid attribution platforms exist, the most effective “third-party tool” for implementation is the one you build yourself with a service like Stape (which is a managed hosting service for server-side GTM) or by using Google Cloud Platform to host your server container.
These tools provide the necessary infrastructure to implement the server-side solution described, giving you full control over your first-party data.
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