Where Did My Paid Clicks Go? Five Post-Click Leaks You Can Plug with Cloudflare - HeroConf April 26

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Baris Asa SyncTag Where Did My Paid Clicks Go? Five Post-Click Leaks You Can Plug with Cloudﬂare @BarisAsa | Speakerdeck.com/barisasa

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You pay for the click.

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Google takes the money.

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The user starts their journey.

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And then… they vanish.

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Where Did My Paid Clicks Go?

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Me IRL

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GTM GA4 CAPI Server-side Tagging CoMo2 E-commerce Tracking Product Analytics

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Let's follow a click.

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running shoes Ad yoursite.com/running-shoes Premium Running Shoes – Free Next-Day Delivery Shop the latest collection. 30-day returns. Trusted by 50,000 runners.

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CPC = £1.40

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What happens when someone clicks Google records the click A GCLID generated Appended to your URL

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yoursite.com/running-shoes?gclid=EAIaIQob...

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The GCLID needs to reach your landing page.

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Before anything loads… Browser DNS TLS 70–300 ms 200 ms–2 s+ Load Balancer Origin

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Your server doesn't know this is a paid click.

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The edge layer Browser DNS TLS Edge Node Load Balancer Origin

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Without edge North California ~8600 km Edinburgh ~300 ms

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Without edge With edge North California ~8600 km Edinburgh ~300 ms North California Edge node ~5ms Edinburgh

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What the edge can do

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What the edge can do Cache content close to the user

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What the edge can do Cache content close to the user Block bots and bad traﬃc

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What the edge can do Cache content close to the user Block bots and bad traﬃc Rewrite URLs and run tracking logic

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Most of today's ﬁxes happen at edge.

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A typical landing page HTML CSS Fonts GTM Google Ads tag Meta Pixel Hotjar Cookie consent Images × 12 80–100 requests

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3 seconds White screen.

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3 seconds User is gone.

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53% of mobile users leave after 3 seconds.

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Five leaks 1 Speed 2 Redirects 3 Bots 4 Spam 5 Tracking

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LEAK #1 SPEED LEAK

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Every one-second delay 7–20% fewer conversions Google / Deloitte

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£1.40 click × 4 s load = £1.40 for a loading spinner

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Fix it in Cloudﬂare Cache > Cache Rules > Content Optimisation Caching You decide what gets cached, where, and for how long.

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Fix it in Cloudﬂare Early Hints Browser starts downloading before page is built = ~500 ms LCP boost Speed > Settings > Content Optimisation

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Fix it in Cloudﬂare Polish Auto-converts images to WebP/AVIF. 90% compression = Faster load. Speed > Settings > Image Optimisation

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Pro, Business and Enterprise

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Fix it in Cloudﬂare Cloudﬂare Fonts Serves Google Fonts from your own domain. Faster load. Speed > Settings > Content Optimisation

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40–60% faster TTFB 50–70% less bandwidth

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Test before you ship.

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LEAK #2 REDIRECT LEAK

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GCLID can be lost here http:// site.com What the visitor's browser is doing 301 → https:// site.com 301 → https:// www.site.com 301 → https:// www.site.com/new +200 ms +200 ms +200 ms = 600 ms wasted + GCLID lost HTTP HTTPS WWW SUBFOLDER

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The redirect chain http://site.com/landing?gclid=abc123 → https://site.com/landing?gclid=abc123 → https://www.site.com/landing GCLID can disappear → https://www.site.com/new-landing

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Your ROAS looks worse than it actually is.

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Fix it in Cloudﬂare URL Rewrite No redirect. No extra round trip, and nothing gets lost on the way. Rules > + Create Rule > URL Rewrite Rule

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1 2 3

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Fix it in Cloudﬂare Redirect Rules One clean hop. Preserve query strings = make sure the GCLID survives Rules > + Create Rule > Redirect Rules

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1 2 3

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Always verify.

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LEAK #3 FAKE CLICK LEAK

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$63B wasted on invalid traﬃc 11–22% of PPC clicks are not from humans IAS / FraudBlocker

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Google catches some. Not all.

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You've already been optimising bids on inﬂated numbers for two weeks.

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Activate it in Cloudﬂare Security > Settings > Bot ﬁght mode Free

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Super Bot Fight Mode Pro and Business Bot Management Enterprise Bot Score

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Also: campaign-level protection ClickCease Lunio ClickGUARD Works inside Google Ads at the campaign level. Use both: edge layer + campaign-level

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LEAK #4 SPAM LEAD LEAK

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Your CRM, last Tuesday Sarah Johnson [email protected] Valid test test [email protected] SPAM Buy SEO Links [email protected] SPAM Mark Davies [email protected] Valid aaaaaa [email protected] SPAM

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Smart Bidding trains on your conversions.

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The Spam Loop Spam form submissions Reported as conversions Smart Bidding optimises for more Google ﬁnds more spam

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Clean forms are not enough.

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You need clean success signals.

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Fix it with Cloudﬂare Turnstile Free Mostly invisible Standalone Add a snippet or use a WordPress plugin Clean forms → clean signals → better bidding

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Protect & Connect > Application security > Turnstile

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Your CPA drops when you stop feeding the algorithm junk.

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Alternative: Google reCAPTCHA v3

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LEAK #5 TRACKING LEAK

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Blocked.

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Delayed.

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Duplicated.

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Your browser loads your landing page HTML CSS Fonts GTM Google Ads tag Meta Pixel Hotjar Cookie consent Images × 12 BLOCKED BLOCKED BLOCKED BLOCKED BLOCKED Ad Blocker Blocks known third parties. Your conversion tags never ﬁre.

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+50 tags in your GTM container. They make your page heavier +2 seconds load time = 20% fewer conversions Ad blockers & some browsers block them ~30% of users use ad blockers

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15-30% of your conversions are invisible.

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Your dashboard says 4x ROAS It might be closer to 5x

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That gap is enough to make you scale back a campaign that was actually hitting your target.

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1 Google Tag Gateway Setup: 5 minutes; no code changes Cost: Free on any Cloudﬂare plan Google tags are served from your domain Ad blockers are less likely to ﬂag it Google measurement stack only Early testers saw an average uplift of 11% in conversion signals Five-minute win

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GTM > Admin - Container > Google Tag Gateway

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2 Cloudﬂare Zaraz Lighter page + better tracking Server-side tag management on Cloudﬂare servers Small client script still in browser (not zero-JS) Heavy third-party scripts removed 50+ tools: Meta, LinkedIn, GA4, Google Ads… Free < 1M events/month, £5 per 1M after Less expensive than sGTM infrastructure

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Protect & Connect > Delivery & performance > Web tag management > Tag setup

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3 Server-side Tagging (sGTM) Longer-term + full control Full GTM container on your own server All platforms: Meta CAPI, TikTok Events API… Best option for more durable 1st party cookies Lightweight client container still in browser Needs a developer + hosting More maintenance, but full control

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Tag Gateway Zaraz sGTM Setup 5 min Hours Hours + infra Cost Free Free < 1M Paid Google ✓ ✓ ✓ Meta / LinkedIn ✗ ✓ ✓ Safari resilience ✗ ✗ ✓ Speed boost Small Big Medium Maintenance None Low Higher QUICK WIN ULTIMATE LOW BUDGET

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Five leaks. One journey. All ﬁxable. 1 Speed 2 Redirects 3 Bots 4 Spam 5 Tracking

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You may not need a dev sprint.

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You probably need an edge layer.

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☀ Monday morning to-do list

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1 PageSpeed Insights Top 5 pages. Mobile. LCP > 2.5s?

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2 Screaming Frog Your ad URLs. More than one hop? GCLID survives?

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3 Clicks vs Sessions Google Ads clicks vs GA4 sessions. 30 days. Gap > 15%?

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4 Form Submissions Last month. What % is junk? > 10%?

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5 uBlock Origin Test Install it. Open your landing page. Does the conversion tag ﬁre?

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6 Error rate / landing health Check 4xx / 5xx / origin timeout rate. Have a backup URL. Know who owns cache purge / rollback