What is ad platform integration and why does it matter?
Ad platform integration means joining your website, tracking and CRM to the ad platforms, so they receive the leads and sales that came from their ads. Without it, bidding learns from clicks and form fills instead of customers.
What gets joined up
- Website to platform: conversion events through Google Tag Manager, and for sites that spend on ads a server container on Stape.
- CRM to platform: lead stages sent back to Google Ads as offline conversions. We set these up, and we watch how many leads each upload matches.
- Click IDs: saved with each lead, so a sale can be traced to its ad.
Why it matters
A platform can only optimise for what it's told. Platform conversions aren't always pipeline, so we judge ads on the leads and sales in your own records, and never add Google's and Meta's figures together.
What it needs
Consent has to be handled properly, tags need to fire correctly, and someone needs to check the data after launch. Set up wrong, a tracking tool can write the wrong value where a click ID should be.
It's part of our tracking service.
The tools in this answer
GTMHolds every tag, in the browser and on the server, so a change goes in once and gets tested before it goes live.Tech
StapeStape runs the server side of our tracking. Tags load from the client's own domain, and the server passes each conversion on to GA4, Google Ads and Meta, so fewer get lost to ad blockers and Safari.Tech
Google AdsSearch for leads, Shopping and Performance Max for online shops. Conversion goals match what the business actually counts, and real leads and sales go back to Google.PPC
Where this came up in our work
Also worth asking
Other answers about the same tools.
What is technical and tracking infrastructure?
It's the set-up that counts what happens on your site and sends it where it needs to go: tracking tags, analytics, ad-platform conversions, your CRM connection and cookie consent, plus the hosting and security around your website.
How do you set up website analytics and tracking?
We agree with you what counts as a conversion, then set up Google Tag Manager and GA4, plus server-side tracking through Stape for sites that spend on ads. Before we hand over, we check the data is actually arriving.
What is paid marketing and how does it work?
Paid marketing means paying to put your business in front of people, usually through ads on Google, Meta or LinkedIn. You set a budget and an audience, and you pay per click or per thousand views. The hard part is knowing which ads bring customers.
What is server-side tracking, and why do we use Stape?
Server-side tracking means your site sends each event once, to a server container, and that server passes it on to GA4, Google Ads and Meta, instead of every platform running its own script in the visitor's browser. We use Stape to host that container so you don't have to run a server. It reduces lost conversions. It doesn't get them all back, and it doesn't get round consent.
What platforms do you use for paid marketing campaigns?
Google Ads and Meta (Facebook and Instagram), plus LinkedIn for B2B work. We use Microsoft Ads where a campaign needs it. Which ones we use depends on whether people search for what you sell.
Still have questions?Talk to us
Bring your numbers.
We'll tell you if the spend makes sense.
- A 15-minute callYour goals, your challenges, and whether we're the right fit.
- A 1-hour discovery callWe dig into your numbers. Worth a hundred emails.
- A concrete planAds, a custom build or both, as a one-off project or ongoing.