HelloFresh recently made the switch to server-side tagging. It has allowed the meal delivery company to have much more control over tracking on their platform that operates in more than 17 countries, according to Alejandro Zielinsky, Global Digital Tracking/Measurement Lead at Hellofresh. During the DDMA Digital Analytics Summit, Alejandro will talk at length about the technical solution it took to make this turn. In this interview, conducted for the Life After GDPR Podcast, he gives a little sneak peek.
About Alejandro: Alejandro Zielinsky is Global Digital Tracking/Measurement Lead at Hellofresh. He and his team are responsible for collecting data and setting up the technology to give marketing and product analysts within Hellofriesh the tools they need to do their jobs.
Watch/listen to the full podcast below:
Why server-side tagging?
Everyone is talking about server-side tagging these days. At HelloFresh, it forms the solution to increase the quality of the data they collect. Alejandro: “Before the switch, we were looking for a platform that allowed us to measure every hit we got. In total, we record about 3 billion events per month for all brands in all countries. That’s about 1,000 hits per second. Logically, we needed a platform that could handle this, and at the same time connect to APIs to enrich our data internally. That’s why we ended up choosing server-side tagging.’
Another reason for this setup is because HelloFresh wanted to improve browser performance. Alejandro: ‘We were having a lot of problems with marketing tagging in the browser, on the client side. Also, locally, HelloFresh was quite a jungle. In each country we had a different setup to solve the same problem, affecting browser performance. Each country had separate tech managers, with each country having its own container.
Now most of the data collection happens server-side. Whether it’s for Google analytics, for first-party solutions, or for sending data to marketing vendors, like Facebook, TikTok or Snapchat. Everything works with server-side APIs, using the GTM server, Alejandro explains. “With this setup, we can enrich data on-the-fly. We can remove data that we don’t actually need. In a number of countries this is very important, for example in Japan or in the GDPR countries in Europe.’
This and much more will be covered during the Life After GDPR Podcast. Among other things, they will talk about:
- How HelloFresh finally implemented Server-side Tag Management
- How they addressed privacy and consent, and how server-side tagging played a vital role in it
- The challenges they encountered to be compliant with local laws around the world.