Server-side Event

A server-side event is a behavioral record sent to analytics by your backend after something happens there, rather than fired from the user's browser or app.

Its claim is that the system completed something, not that a person saw or clicked something, which makes it the reliable source for outcomes such as a captured payment, a shipped order or a refund. The sender has to attach the identity itself, because there is no cookie and no device context on that side. The most common damage is double counting: when the same action is also fired from the browser, the two copies merge into one number unless a shared key such as the order id is used to deduplicate. Server events also arrive late or out of order more often than client events, so reports should key on the event timestamp rather than the moment of ingestion.