Setting Up A Server-Side GTM Container Using Google Cloud Platform

How long will it take?

We anticipate it should take you 45-60 minutes to complete your Google Cloud Run setup.

• 10-15 min to set up & share GTM container

• 0-10 min to set up Google billing account

• 15-20 min to configure Cloud Run server

It will also take you about 10 minutes more to set make necessary edits to your DNS records.

Total: 35-55 minutes.

Automatically provisioning a server in Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is comprised of 5 parts.

Part 1: Establish a GTM Container for Server-Side Tracking

1. Go to tagmanager.google.com, making sure you’re logged into the correct Google account for your organization. Preferably, it should be the same account that owns any other Google products you have set up (other Google Tag Manager accounts, Google Analytics properties, etc).

2. Find the existing account where your GTM web container exists, and click the … menu button, then click Create Container.

   1. We suggest using the URL of your website to name your container

      1. (For the purposes of this example, we will be using yourcompanydomain.com)

   2. Select Server from the “Target Platform” list.

      

3. If you don’t see an existing account, create a new one by clicking Create Account:

   

   1. On the Account Setup screen:

      1. We suggest using the format “Your Company – Server-Side”) to name your account.

      2. Leave the country as United States

      3. Leave the box for sharing data anonymously unchecked

      4. We suggest using the URL of your website to name your container

         1. (For the purposes of this example, we will be using yourcompanydomain.com)

      5. Select Server from the “Target Platform” list.
         

4. Click Create and accept the data processing agreement

5. Your Server-Side Google Tag Manager (“SSGTM”) container is now created, and you will be sent to the Tag Manager interface. The first thing you see will be a pop-up asking you to set up a tagging server. Select Automatically provision tagging server.

Part 2: Set Up a Tagging Server in Google Cloud Platform

To move forward from here, you’ll need a billing account. If you already have one, it may be automatically selected. Once you’ve verified it has the correct payment information, select it, click Select billing account and create server, then once your server has been created, proceed to Part 3.

1. Create a Billing Account

   • If you need to create a new billing account, do so now. You’ll simply need to agree to the terms, add your payment information, then click Submit (button text may vary). Immediately after creating a billing account, you should be returned to the same screen where you originally clicked Automatically provision tagging server. If everything looks good, click Select billing account and create server, then once your server has been created, proceed to Part 3.

     • If you don't see the billing account you just created yet, Google may just need a minute—try refreshing the page. (Don’t click 'Create a billing account' twice)

     • If you weren’t returned to the right screen, here’s how to navigate back:

       1. From the Tag Manager interface (tagmanager.google.com), find the GTM Container with type “Server” you just created, and click on it.

          

       2. You will be sent to the home screen of your SSGTM account. Click on the Admin tab.

          

       3. Click on Container Settings at the top of the list on the right.

          

       4. Click on Set up your tagging server

          

       5. Click Automatically provision tagging server.

       6. Select your billing account from the drop-down, and finally, click Select billing account and create server.

Finally, Google will create your server. (It will likely take a few minutes)

Part 3: Configure and Verify a Custom Domain

Once your server is created, in order to get the maximum benefit of server-side tagging, it’s essential to set up a custom URL for it using your own domain.

1. Navigate back to Container Settings (in the Admin tab of tagmanager.google.com).

2. Under the “Google Cloud Platform Project ID” section, click the outbound link icon to go to the Google Cloud Server associated with the Server-Side Tag Manager.

   

3. A new tab will open displaying your server’s dashboard at console.cloud.google.com. Click on the 3 horizontal lines in the top left of the screen and within the Products menu, find and select Cloud Run.

4. Here, you will see two servers which could be labeled a few different ways. You want to find and click on the live server. (This will be named without a suffix at all, or with a “prod” or “live” suffix. It will not have a “preview” or “debug” suffix.) For example:

   

5. Once you open the live server instance, click the INTEGRATIONS tab, then click + ADD INTEGRATIONS, then finally click Custom domains - Google Cloud Load Balancing

   

6. If you see an error message similar to the one in the screenshot below, click GRANT ALL.

7. If you see a notification that some APIs must be enabled, click ENABLE.

   

8. Under “Routes,” fill in Domain 1 with the full URL of the subdomain you’d like to use. Leave the “Path 1” and “Service 1” fields as they were. Then, click Submit at the very bottom of the page.

   • In the example below, we have used “gtmss“ as the subdomain but the full URL would be “gtmss.yourcompanydomain.com”. You could use “ss”, “ssgtm”, or any other subdomain you’d like. This URL will potentially be visible, at least momentarily, to customers in some situations/browsers.

   • It will take a few minutes to complete the setup.

     

9. After a few minutes, you will see the DNS records that you need to add in your website’s DNS provider. They’ll be at the bottom of the “Integration Details“ screen in the “Connect to Custom Domain” section.
   

   

   Note: you won’t see “Deployed” for SSL Certificate until you have completed Part 4 below.
   

Part 4: Edit Your Website’s DNS Records

Now it’s time to create and point the subdomain you just chose (e.g. gtmss.yourcompanydomain.com) to the GTM server you’ve created.

1. You will need to log in to your domain name registrar and create a new DNS record for the subdomain you want to use. Here are the DNS record specifics you would use from the example in the screenshot above. (These items will be different for you!)

   • Type: A

   • Host or Name: gtmss

   • “DATA”, “IPv4 address”, “Points To”, or “Value”: 34.120.224.52

   • TTL: Auto or Default (no need to change to 3600 as seen in the screenshot)

   • Proxy status: Disable (If you don’t see Proxy status as an editable field, don’t worry. It will be disabled by default.)

It usually takes a few hours, and may take up to 72, to fully set up the custom domain. Once the domain is completely added and verified, you’ll see the SSL Certificate field turn “Deployed“ under the Integration Details as seen in the screenshot below.

Part 5: Configure GTM Container + Grant Rain Access

1. Next, you’ll need to configure your new custom domain in the GTM Server container you created during Part 1. Start by navigating to tagmanager.google.com. You may still have that tab open. (Again, please ensure you are logged in and using the correct Google account—Google has a bad habit of randomly switching the account you’re logged into.)

2. Navigate to your Container Settings (Click your container -> Admin tab -> Container Settings)

3. Click Add URL, paste in the custom domain you just set up (adding “https://” to the beginning), and click Save.

Share Access with RAIN

The below steps will not be necessary if you created your GTM server container in a pre-existing account which we already have admin access to.

4. Navigate back to your Google Tag Manager account at tagmanager.google.com (again, ensuring you are logged in and using the same Google profile).

5. Click on your Server-Side Container → Admin → User Management
   

   

6. Click the blue ✚ icon in the top right and select Add Users
   

   

7. Enter “support@rainlocal.com” and “analytics@rainlocal.com” into the Email addresses field.

   1. Check the box for Administrator access, then click Invite.

   2. (Alternatively, you may select ‘User’ rather than Admin, but in this case, you will need to click Container Permissions and select Publish.)

You’re done! This completes the server-side Google Tag Manager installation.

Please let us know when you’ve finished, so we can confirm everything is looking good from our end.

Thank you!