Full Answer

GDPR compliance requires that analytics and advertising cookies, both classified as non-essential, are only set after a visitor grants explicit consent. Consent rejection rates in the EU consistently run 40-70%, meaning your pixel-based tracking simply does not fire for a significant portion of your audience. GA4, Facebook Pixel, and Google Ads tags all rely on JavaScript cookies that fall under this requirement. Server-side tracking does not bypass GDPR consent requirements, but it can be integrated with a Consent Management Platform (CMP) to send anonymized or aggregated signals for users who decline, and full event data for those who consent. Running a compliant CMP with server-side event delivery for consenting users typically recovers more actionable data than pixel-only setups that receive consent then fail to deliver reliably. For WooCommerce stores serving EU customers, the combination of a compliant CMP and server-side event routing is the current best practice for balancing legal compliance with analytics completeness.