Enhancing Google Ads Conversion Tracking with JENTIS

Google Ads is a cornerstone of digital marketing, commanding significant budgets and driving critical business decisions. However, its reliance on client-side tracking—typically via the Google Tag—introduces both compliance risks and data quality challenges, especially under strict regulations like GDPR and ePrivacy

JENTIS addresses these challenges by enabling server-side conversion tracking with Google Ads, which enhances legal compliance by reducing reliance on client-side cookies and third-party scripts. Yet, removing the Google Tag entirely from your website presents a trade-off:

• Upside: Full control over data collection, improved compliance, and reduced exposure to browser restrictions or ad blockers.

• Downside: Shifting control away from Google’s native tracking can lead to discrepancies in reported conversion data, as Google Ads’ built-in modeling and attribution logic becomes less transparent and harder to reconcile with your internal analytics.

This article explores a hybrid approach—leveraging the strengths of both client-side and server-side tracking—to achieve the best of both worlds: compliance and accuracy.

The Challenge: Black Box Reporting in Google Ads and Client-Side Dependencies

Google Ads Conversion numbers reported often do not match real observed numbers, the reasons are computational (modeling and attribution algorithms) but also technical (client- vs. server-side tracking).

Google Ads applies proprietary modeling and attribution logic to reported conversions, often resulting in numbers that do not align with observations in your analytics or BI tools. Key issues include:

• Modeling: Google uses statistical models to “fill in the gaps” for conversions it cannot directly observe (e.g., due to cookie restrictions or denied consent). This modeling is opaque and cannot be disabled in Google Ads reports.

• Attribution: Google’s default attribution models (e.g., data-driven, last-click) may not reflect your actual customer journey or business logic, leading to mismatches with your internal data.

• Lack of Transparency: The inability to audit or adjust these models creates a “black box” scenario, where reported conversions diverge from reality, eroding trust in the data.

For businesses, this means:

• Inaccurate ROI calculations due to inflated or misattributed conversions.

• Compliance risks if client-side tags collect data without proper consent.

• Operational friction when reconciling Google Ads data with other systems (e.g., CRM, BI tools).

Additionally this all is baked into an environment where the client-side Google Tag also takes the lead in implementation. While keeping unclear what role it plays out we can only confirm from the external perspective that it does matter if a signal was sent from the client to the Google ecosystem when compared to a fully server-side running conversion tracking.

The Solution: Hybrid Deduplication for Resilient Conversion Tracking

To mitigate these issues, JENTIS recommends a hybrid deduplication approach, inspired by Meta’s Facebook Pixel and Conversions API strategy. While Google does not officially promote this method for Google Ads, it can be implemented using the transaction_id parameter to send the same conversion event from both client-side (JENTIS Tag Manager Google Ads tag) and server-side (JENTIS server). Read more on this topic at the official Google Ads documentation. Google Ads will then deduplicate the signals based on the identical transaction_id, ensuring:

• Redundancy: Both client and server send the same conversion, improving data resilience.

• Accuracy: Server-side tracking acts as a backup, capturing conversions even if client-side tags fail (e.g., due to ad blockers or consent rejection).

• Compliance: Server-side tracking via JENTIS ensures GDPR-compliant data collection, while client-side tags provide continuity for Google’s native reporting. With the activated features of Synthetic Users and Essential Mode you can even increase the accuracy in Google Ads with JENTIS.

Why Redundancy Matters in Data Pipelines

Redundancy is a fundamental principle in resilient systems—whether in engineering, IT infrastructure, or data pipelines. By sending conversion data through two independent channels, you achieve:

• Higher Data Quality: Gaps caused by client-side failures (e.g., browser restrictions, network issues) are filled by server-side tracking.

• Compliance Flexibility: Server-side tracking via JENTIS ensures GDPR compliance, while client-side tags maintain compatibility with Google’s ecosystem.

• Future-Proofing: As privacy regulations evolve and browser restrictions tighten, server-side tracking becomes increasingly critical for reliable data collection.

How It Works - Setup JENTIS Tag Manager for Google Ads Deduplicated Conversion Tracking

To implement the same conversion tracking client- and server-side you must install two connectors in JENTIS Tag Manager:

• Google Ads JENTIS Connector focussing on server-side Google Ads conversion tracking.

• Google Ads Dynamic Remarketing JENTIS Connector focussing on Google Tag based (client-side) event tracking to enhance features of the Google marketing suite ecosystem like retargeting and audience sharing.

Please make sure to link both installed connectors to the Consent Management Platform, best with the same CMP-Vendor so that consent is applied the same on both connectors tags.

Now you must configure for both a conversion tag with the redundant setup.

• Create (if not yet existing) a Google Ads tag by the template "Google Ads Conversion" with:

  • appropriate trigger

  • conversion ID and label

  • transaction ID

• Create a new tag for GADR tag by the template "Google Ads Dynamic Remarketing - Conversion" with:

  • same trigger as the first tag

  • same conversion ID and label

  • same transaction ID (the variable must be a client-side available value)

Google Ads Dynamic Remarketing conversion tag example:

Now you can test your setup and see that the same signal will be sent from the web browser (client) but also from the server-side during the JENTIS Preview mode. Make sure the values that must be identical (as listed above) are matching as expected.

You're finished with this setup and can release this to production. Where you will likely observe an enhanced conversion count reported in the Google Ads reports, due to the more resilient approach and enhancing the data flow utilizing the Google Tag.