Server-Side GTM Setup – Part 5 – Block Bots & Clean Up Your Data

Why It Matters

By filtering bots, internal IPs, and ad‑blocker traffic, businesses obtain cleaner analytics, leading to more accurate ROI calculations and better‑informed marketing decisions.

Key Takeaways

• Enable Bot Detection to block non-human traffic from GA reports.
• Use Block Request by IP to exclude internal or unwanted visitors.
• Add Ad Blocker Info header to capture true/false ad-block status.
• Create GA custom dimension for ad-blocker data to enrich analysis.
• Stape’s Custom Loader required for advanced power-up functionality.

Summary

Server-side Google Tag Manager (GTM) tracking gains three new Power-Ups in Stape’s fifth tutorial: Bot Detection, Block Request by IP, and Ad Blocker Info. The video walks viewers through enabling each feature, showing where to find them in the Stape dashboard and how they integrate with a server-side container.

Bot Detection can either append request headers with bot metadata or outright block bot requests from reaching Google Analytics. The presenter recommends the “Block Requests From Bots” option and also shows how to prevent the web container from loading for bots using Stape’s Custom Loader. Block Request by IP lets users manually list IP addresses—useful for filtering internal traffic—but warns that blocked IPs lose access to Debug Mode.

The Ad Blocker Info Power-Up adds an X-User-Adblocker header that returns true or false. The tutorial demonstrates creating a GTM variable for this header, attaching it to a GA event parameter, and configuring a matching custom dimension in Google Analytics to surface ad-blocker usage in reports.

Together, these tools cleanse data, improve metric reliability, and unlock new segmentation possibilities—allowing marketers to discount bot noise, exclude internal traffic, and understand the impact of ad blockers on revenue and ad performance.

Original Description

In this server-side tagging tutorial, I'll show you how to use three Stape power-ups to clean up your data and improve the accuracy of your reports. To make server-side tagging simple to set up and manage, I recommend using Stape. Get started with Stape at https://lnk.stape.io/LovesData5

We'll start by setting up Bot Detection to filter out automated traffic before it reaches Google Analytics and Google Ads. Then we'll configure Block Request by IP so you can stop your own internal traffic from appearing in your reports. Finally, we'll enable Ad Blocker Info and set up the reporting so you can see how many of your visitors are using an ad blocker.

This video focuses on three features that directly improve the quality of the data you're collecting: keeping bot traffic out of your reports, excluding your own visits by IP address, and identifying visitors who have an ad blocker enabled. By the end of this video, you'll have all three power-ups configured, along with a custom dimension in Google Analytics so you can report on your ad blocker traffic.

This video is sponsored by Stape, a managed hosting solution for Google Tag Manager server-side containers that makes it simple to set up and manage server-side tracking without building your own infrastructure.

YOUR EXTRA RESOURCES:

○ Get started with Stape – https://lnk.stape.io/LovesData5

○ Save 20% with Stape promo code LOVESDATA20 (valid until 30 September 2026)

○ Google Tag Manager tutorial series – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1vNrn711L8SnLqvJ_W0sofsVST7ldXXV

○ Google Tag Manager course – https://www.lovesdata.com/courses/google-tag-manager/

SERVER-SIDE TAGGING TUTORIAL SERIES:

Lesson 1: Setting up your server-side container – https://youtu.be/1eAkdM6ZXUg

Lesson 2: Configuring clients and tags – https://youtu.be/3q59o-DPsLQ

Lesson 3: Testing and optimizing your setup – https://youtu.be/pk7ZI8fhCq0

Lesson 4: Cookie Keeper, Click ID Restorer & User ID – https://youtu.be/mhwF7FmHdYw

Lesson 5: Bot Detection, Block Request by IP & Ad Blocker Info (That's this video)

JUMP TO A TOPIC:

00:00 Introduction

01:07 Setting up Bot Detection

03:40 Setting up Block Request by IP

05:41 Setting up Ad Blocker Info

07:04 Creating the Ad Blocker variable in GTM

07:48 Adding Ad Blocker info to your GA4 tag

09:28 Creating the custom dimension in Google Analytics

10:57 Next steps

TOOLS WE USE AND RECOMMEND:

○ Data connector – https://lovesdata.co/oOWkI

○ Cookie banner – https://lovesdata.co/letON

○ Email platform – https://lovesdata.co/zrLd7

○ Course platform – https://lovesdata.co/2Zzfq

Join our courses: https://www.lovesdata.com/courses/

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