Introduction
With third-party cookies fading away and growing demands for performance and privacy, server-side architectures are gaining ground. Adobe’s take on it? Event Forwarding, included in Real-Time CDP Connections, Prime or Ultimate (Adobe: event forwarding overview).
🌐 What is Adobe Event Forwarding?
It’s a server-side event redirection mechanism, built on Adobe Experience Platform.
The flow looks like this:
- 🧑💻 A user interacts with your website.
- 🧩 Adobe Tags (formerly Launch) collects the data client-side.
- 🌍 The data is sent to Adobe Edge Network.
- 🚀 From there, it’s forwarded server-side to other destinations like GA4, Meta Ads, TikTok, etc.
🎯 Why use it?
Here are the main benefits:
- ✅ Performance: fewer JS scripts = faster pages
- ✅ Data governance: more transparency and control over which data is sent to which vendor (consent still has to be collected and respected)
- ✅ Flexibility: transform and enrich data before sending it out
🧰 How does implementation work?
Within Adobe Experience Platform, the Event Forwarding UI lets you:
- Define server-side rules (triggers, conditions, actions)
- Use extensions from the event forwarding catalog (Meta Conversions API, TikTok Web Events API, Google Ads Enhanced Conversions…; GA4 via the Cloud Connector for Google Analytics listed on Adobe Exchange, or the Adobe Cloud Connector)
- Write custom JS logic if needed
🎥 Adobe provides a short, clear video here:
https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/experience-platform/tags/event-forwarding/overview
🗣️ Scripted version (for video, training or onboarding)
🎬 Intro
Hey there! Today we’re going to break down how server-side forwarding with Adobe Real-Time CDP Connections works — also known as Event Forwarding.
We’ll cover what it does, why it’s useful, and how to set it up.
🎯 Why Event Forwarding?
If you’re using Adobe Tags (formerly Launch), you’re probably triggering marketing tags client-side — in the browser.
The downside? That means:
- Heavier pages (more JS)
- Many separate vendor calls, each of which can fail or be blocked (event forwarding replaces them with one Edge call; a first-party edgeDomain can reduce — not remove — ad-blocker impact)
- Less control over which data each vendor’s script collects
With Event Forwarding, we still collect data client-side — but the routing happens server-side, through Adobe.
🔁 How it works
- A user interacts with your site (click, scroll, purchase…)
- Adobe Tags collects the data in the browser
- It gets sent to the Adobe Edge Network
- From there, it’s forwarded server-side to GA4, Meta, TikTok, or other tools
🛒 Real example:
Let’s say someone completes a purchase.
- A
purchaseevent is fired in Adobe Tags- It reaches Adobe Edge Network
- You’ve set up a rule in Event Forwarding that then sends it to GA4 and Meta — without firing anything else in the browser
🧰 What do you configure?
In Adobe Experience Platform:
- Create an Event Forwarding property
- Add a rule with a condition on the XDM event type (
arc.event.xdm.eventTypeequalscommerce.purchases)- Add an action (an extension such as Meta Conversions API, custom code, Cloud Connector API call…)
✅ Why it rocks
- Fewer scripts → faster site
- Server control → you decide which fields each vendor receives
- All routing rules in one place (note: all rules and actions for one event must finish within 30 seconds, and actions run one after another)
🎥 That’s it! You now have a modern server-side tracking setup, built into the Adobe stack.
🛠️ Practical Guide – How-To Adobe Event Forwarding
1. Requirements
- Access to Adobe Real-Time CDP with Connections
- Web SDK (via Tags or raw code), Mobile SDK or Edge Network API already sending XDM data to Edge Network (ex: purchase event)
2. Create an Event Forwarding property
- Go to Data Collection > Event Forwarding (left navigation)
- Click “New Property” (platform: Edge)
- Name it clearly (e.g.
ecom-server-routing)
2b. Enable event forwarding in your datastream
In the datastream used by your Web SDK, enable event forwarding and select the event forwarding property and environment (Adobe: getting started with event forwarding).
3. Create a rule
- In your Event Forwarding property, go to Rules
- Create a rule called
Purchase to GA4 - Add a condition: create a Core > Path data element
eventType=arc.event.xdm.eventType, then a Custom Code condition:return getDataElementValue('eventType') === 'commerce.purchases';(Adobe: Core extension for event forwarding) - Add an action:
- Either use an extension from the event forwarding catalog (Meta Conversions API, TikTok Web Events API, Cloud Connector for GA4…)
- Or write custom JavaScript to send data to external APIs
4. Test your flow
- Use Adobe Experience Platform Debugger to inspect events sent to Edge
- Confirm that server-side rules are triggering correctly
- Check API responses or logs in your destination platforms
5. Pro tips
- Use
utils.logger.log()in custom code actions for debugging - Use data elements server-side to access specific values
- Create a “debug all” rule that logs all incoming events from Edge
🧪 Example: E-commerce event forwarding
Let’s take an add_to_cart event:
- You fire it via Adobe Tags on the browser
- It’s forwarded server-side to GA4, Meta Ads, and TikTok — without extra client-side hits
Result:
- Fewer requests on the browser
- Better cross-platform orchestration
⚠️ Things to keep in mind
- 💰 Requires Adobe Real-Time CDP (a premium product)
- 📚 Has a learning curve (especially if you’re new to AEP)
- 🛡️ Strong data governance is essential
📌 Final thoughts
Adobe Event Forwarding via Real-Time CDP is a modern solution that checks the right boxes for performance, privacy, and flexibility.
It’s not the easiest to roll out — but it’s one of the most powerful if you’re already in the Adobe ecosystem.
👉 Want to move server-side without giving up your tag manager? This might just be the bridge you need.