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The Modern SaaS Stack: Unify Your Retargeting Audiences and Eliminate Wasted Ad Spend

Are you frustratingly showing ads to customers who have already converted? When a lead submits a form, they might stop seeing your Google Ads but continue to be targeted on Facebook for days. This disconnect wastes your budget, creates a poor user experience, and skews your performance data by failing to sync your exclusion audiences in real-time.

This playbook implements 'The Modern SaaS Stack,' a powerful yet cost-effective solution. We'll use a user-friendly Tally form to capture leads. Upon submission, Tally sends the data via a webhook directly to a server-side Google Tag Manager container. This server-side 'event hub' then reliably forwards the conversion event to both Google Analytics 4 and the Facebook Conversions API simultaneously. The result is instant, synchronized audience updates across both platforms, ensuring converted leads are immediately excluded from all retargeting campaigns.

Expected Outcomes

  • Eliminate wasted ad spend by instantly removing converted users from retargeting campaigns on both Google and Facebook.
  • Improve user experience by no longer showing irrelevant ads to customers who have already taken action.
  • Achieve near real-time synchronization between your Google Ads exclusion lists and Facebook Custom Audiences.
  • Gain more accurate campaign performance data by ensuring conversion events are tracked reliably across platforms.

Core Tools in This Stack

Tally.so

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Tally.so is a simple yet powerful form builder that allows users to create unlimited forms and surveys with an intuitive, document-like interface. It's designed to be the simplest way to collect data and generate leads, offering 99% of its features for free.

Key Features
  • Unlimited forms and submissions on the free plan
  • Intuitive Notion-like editor
  • Conditional logic and answer piping
  • Numerous native integrations (Notion, Airtable, Slack) and Zapier
  • Payment and donation collection via Stripe
  • Custom branding, domains, and team collaboration (Pro plan)
Ideal For

Company Size: Micro, Small, Medium, Large

Industries: Technology & Software, Business & Professional Services, Retail & E-commerce, Creative & Media, Education & Non-Profit, Health & Wellness, Other

Pricing

Model: Free, Freemium, Subscription

Tier: Low-cost

Ease of Use

Very Easy

Google Tag Manager

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A free tag management system that allows you to quickly and easily update measurement codes and related code fragments (tags) on your website or mobile app, simplifying the process for marketers and reducing reliance on developers.

Key Features
  • Deploy Google and third-party tags without editing site code
  • Extensive library of tag templates
  • Workspaces and granular access controls for team collaboration
  • Built-in debugging tools and version control
  • Server-side tagging for improved performance and security
  • Error checking and speedy tag loading
Ideal For

Company Size: Micro, Small, Medium, Large

Industries: Technology & Software, Business & Professional Services, Retail & E-commerce, Creative & Media, Education & Non-Profit, Health & Wellness, Other

Pricing

Model: Free

Tier: Free

Ease of Use

Medium

Google Analytics 4

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Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is a web and app analytics service that enables businesses to measure traffic and engagement. It provides a deeper understanding of the customer journey by using a flexible, event-based data model, offering predictive insights through machine learning, and integrating directly with marketing platforms to optimize campaign performance and drive ROI.

Key Features
  • Cross-platform user journey tracking (web + app)
  • Event-based data model for flexible measurement
  • AI-powered predictive insights (e.g., purchase and churn probability)
  • Deep integration with Google Ads and BigQuery
  • Enhanced privacy controls and cookieless measurement capabilities
  • Customizable reports and data explorations
  • Real-time activity monitoring
Ideal For

Company Size: Micro, Small, Medium, Large

Industries: Technology & Software, Business & Professional Services, Retail & E-commerce, Creative & Media, Education & Non-Profit, Health & Wellness, Other

Pricing

Model: Free, Freemium

Tier: Free

Ease of Use

Intermediate

The Workflow

graph TD subgraph "The Modern SaaS Stack" direction LR N0["Tally.so"] N1["Google Tag Manager"] N2["Google Analytics 4"] N0 -- "Sends webhook on form submission" --> N1 N1 -- "Sends 'generate_lead' event" --> N2 end classDef blue fill:#3498db,stroke:#2980b9,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff; classDef green fill:#2ecc71,stroke:#27ae60,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff; classDef orange fill:#f39c12,stroke:#d35400,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff; class N0 blue; class N1 blue; class N2 blue;

Integration Logic

  • Tally to sGTM Event Stream

    When a user submits a Tally form, it triggers a configured webhook, sending a JSON payload with the submission data to a unique endpoint on your server-side Google Tag Manager (sGTM) container. An sGTM 'Client' claims this incoming HTTP request. A corresponding 'Trigger' fires based on the client's claim, activating a 'Tag' (e.g., a GA4 Event Tag). This tag maps the data from the Tally payload (like form name and user input) to GA4 event parameters and sends a structured 'generate_lead' event to Google Analytics 4 via the Measurement Protocol.

Eliminate Wasted Ad Spend

Learn how to instantly sync your exclusion audiences and stop advertising to customers who have already converted.