Google AdWords Server Side Conversion Tracking

Question

I've been trying to add Google AdWords conversion tracking to a single page Application I've been working on, and I have an interesting use case that I can't seem to figure out how to work with:

1. A user fires an event that I want to use as a conversion.
2. I collect data about the event, and send it to an asynchronous service
3. The service maps that event to a conversion label, and does other data transformation.
4. The transformed, now AdWords compatible object is sent to AdWords.

The problem I'm having is that the snippet provided by google uses some global variables and then includes a script (googleadservices.com/pagead/conversion.js), and displays a tracking pixel.

My questions are as follows:

• If I were to just make a request for that pixel, will my conversion fire? (This would be done on the server side, so I wouldn't be able to include the conversion.js file).
• Are there any documented or known ways of firing conversion events other than iFraming the snippet? I really don't want to have to do any data transformation on the client, but even if I did, this seems like an ugly way to achieve the conversion tracking.

Thanks!

Answer 1

AdWords conversion pixels are cookie based, so the pixel request must be made from the client. Google unfortunately doesn't support server-to-server tracking yet, as far as I know, so you're stuck with client-side tracking.

As ugly as it is, it's the most popular method...

Answer 2

It's possible - see this version for google analytics http://code.google.com/p/php-ga/ - but no one seems to have done it for adwords yet unfortunately

Answer 3

So, it turns out you can get away using "offline conversion tracking".

Basically you can export a CSV from your system and import into Google Adwords: https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2998031?hl=en