Looking for an Alternative to Cookies? Server-Side Tagging Holds Promise as Replacement

There are some technical (and policy) issues when it comes to using cooking for tracking. Server-side tagging holds some promise.

If you’re involved in affiliate marketing or advertise on a large scale, you’re probably aware of cookies and their use.

However, there are some limitations:

1. From a policy and privacy perspective, cookies can be disabled on certain browsers. Cookies can be disabled by the end-user, and additionally, increasing privacy regulations are imposing restrictions on how cookies can be used.
2. Cookies can expire after as little as 24 hours. The last time I checked, Amazon’s Associate cookie was 24 hours. Sure, there are others that last far longer, but most of them do, eventually expire.

A new article, published on CustomerThink.com, gives an overview of how server-side tagging can be a viable replacement for the use of cookies.

(That said, there are pros and limitations of each.)

From my understanding, the simplest way to describe what server-side tracking is, in a word (or phrase), is two-sided.

Basically, your server registers a sale, and with that sale comes certain data (not of which breeches the privacy of any particular customer).

That’s one side.

The word two-sided comes in because it’s when the affilaite’s data is matched to a sale that it’s confirmed that a given sale was referred by that affiliate.

For affilaites, advertisers, and managers who feel the squeeze of increasingly restrictive regulations, server-side tagging (though it has its limitations), seems like a viable alternative to using cookies. Yes, it does take some time to set up, get used to, and test, but it may be time and effort well spent.

Source: CustomerThink.com