When we covered the Google Tag Gateway at launch last May, the only supported CDN integration was Cloudflare. That was a meaningful limitation — Cloudflare has excellent market coverage for SMBs and mid-market sites, but many enterprise publishers and large-scale e-commerce operations run on Akamai or Google Cloud infrastructure.
January 29, 2026 changed that. Google added Akamai EdgeWorkers as a supported integration option, and simultaneously launched a one-click setup path via Google Cloud External Application Load Balancer. Both are generally available now.
What Changed: A Quick Recap
The Google Tag Gateway proxies your gtag.js loader script and GA4 measurement requests through your own domain, bypassing ad blocker lists that target googletagmanager.com and google-analytics.com. We covered the full concept and Cloudflare setup in our original Tag Gateway guide.
The January 2026 update adds two new deployment paths:
- Akamai EdgeWorkers — for publishers already using Akamai CDN
- Google Cloud External Application Load Balancer — for teams already running infrastructure on GCP
The underlying functionality is identical to the Cloudflare version — the difference is where the proxy code runs.
Official update reference: GTM Release Notes — January 29, 2026
The Akamai Integration
Akamai’s EdgeWorkers is a serverless compute platform that runs JavaScript at Akamai’s edge locations. The Google Tag Gateway integration deploys an EdgeWorker that proxies Google tag traffic through your domain — the same proxy pattern as Cloudflare Workers, just on Akamai’s network.
Who this is for: Publishers and enterprise e-commerce sites that already use Akamai for CDN and DDoS protection. If you’re paying for Akamai, adding the EdgeWorkers configuration avoids adding Cloudflare as a secondary vendor.
Prerequisites:
- Akamai account with EdgeWorkers enabled (may require a product entitlement — check with your Akamai account team)
- Access to Akamai Control Center
- A custom hostname in Akamai that you’ll use for the Tag Gateway
Akamai Setup Steps
Google’s official setup guide for Akamai is at developers.google.com/tag-platform/tag-manager/gateway — select “Akamai” as your CDN provider.
The high-level steps:
1. Create a custom hostname in Akamai Property Manager
This is the subdomain that will serve as your Tag Gateway endpoint (e.g., tags.yourdomain.com). Configure it in Akamai with your domain’s SSL certificate.
2. Deploy the EdgeWorker Google provides the EdgeWorker bundle pre-built. In Akamai Control Center → EdgeWorkers → Create EdgeWorker → upload Google’s provided bundle → activate on your chosen hostname.
3. Configure the routing rules in Akamai Property Manager
In your Akamai property configuration, add match criteria to route requests matching /gtag/* and /g/* to the EdgeWorker. The EdgeWorker handles proxying to googletagmanager.com and google-analytics.com.
4. Update your GTM container
GTM → Admin → Container Settings → Tagging Server URL → set to https://tags.yourdomain.com.
This updates where your browser-side GTM container sends its measurement requests.
Reported performance: Akamai’s announcement notes an “11% improvement in measurement data accuracy” for sites using the Tag Gateway, based on reduced ad blocker interference. This figure reflects the proportion of previously-blocked events that are now captured — consistent with what we’ve seen reported for Cloudflare deployments as well.
Reference: Akamai blog — Google Tag Gateway integration
The Google Cloud Integration
The GCP path is the more significant development for teams already invested in Google’s infrastructure. It deploys the Tag Gateway directly on Google Cloud External Application Load Balancer — no Cloudflare or Akamai account required.
This is also the first truly one-click setup path for the Tag Gateway. Rather than configuring Workers, EdgeWorkers, or custom nginx rules manually, the GCP integration provisions the necessary infrastructure directly from GTM.
Who this is for: Developers and DevOps teams already running applications on Google Cloud Platform, particularly those using GCP for server-side GTM containers (Cloud Run) or other Google infrastructure.
GCP One-Click Setup
- In your GTM server-side container → Container Settings → Configure Google Tag Gateway
- Select Google Cloud as your deployment option
- Authenticate with your GCP project
- GTM provisions the External Application Load Balancer configuration automatically
- A subdomain (configurable) is created and routed to the load balancer
The provisioning takes 5–10 minutes. Once complete, GTM updates the tagging server URL in your container automatically.
The IPv6 Note (Important for GCP Setup)
Simo Ahava flagged in his March 2026 posts that GCP’s External Application Load Balancer has specific IPv6 configuration requirements that can trip up the setup. Specifically:
- The frontend configuration for the load balancer needs to support both IPv4 and IPv6
- If your domain’s DNS records include AAAA (IPv6) records, the load balancer frontend must have a corresponding IPv6 forwarding rule
- Certificate management now requires certificate maps rather than the older target HTTPS proxy attachment method
If your Tag Gateway via GCP is configured but not serving traffic correctly, check the load balancer’s frontend IPv6 configuration and certificate map setup in the GCP Console → Network Services → Load Balancing.
Reference: Simo Ahava’s March 13 and March 20, 2026 posts on simoahava.com
Comparing the Three Deployment Options
| Cloudflare Workers | Akamai EdgeWorkers | Google Cloud LB | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Most sites; Cloudflare already a common CDN | Sites already on Akamai enterprise contracts | GCP infrastructure users |
| Setup complexity | Low (Worker script + route config) | Medium (EdgeWorker + Property Manager config) | Low (one-click from GTM) |
| Monthly cost | ~$0 (within free tier for most sites) | Included in Akamai contract (EdgeWorkers entitlement required) | GCP LB costs apply (~$18/mo minimum + data processing) |
| Latency | Minimal (<5ms) | Minimal (<5ms on Akamai edge) | Depends on GCP region proximity |
| IPv6 support | Yes | Yes | Yes (requires explicit configuration) |
| Server-side GTM compatible | Yes | Yes | Yes (natural fit — both on GCP) |
Tag Gateway + Server-Side GTM on GCP: The Natural Pairing
One of the most compelling reasons to use the GCP Tag Gateway option is when you’re also running a server-side GTM container on Cloud Run. Both now exist within the same GCP infrastructure:
- Cloud Run: Hosts your server-side GTM container (handles tag processing and vendor routing)
- External Load Balancer: Hosts the Tag Gateway (handles proxying of the gtag.js loader script)
Traffic flows:
Browser loads: tags.yourdomain.com/gtm.js
→ GCP Load Balancer (Tag Gateway)
→ googletagmanager.com (fetches server-side container loader)
Browser sends event: tags.yourdomain.com/g/collect
→ GCP Load Balancer (Tag Gateway)
→ metrics.yourdomain.com (your Cloud Run sGTM container)
→ Vendor APIs (GA4, Meta CAPI, etc.)
Both the loader script and the measurement requests are proxied through your domain, on Google Cloud. Clean, unified infrastructure with a natural management path.
Should You Switch to the New Options?
If you’re on Cloudflare already and it’s working: No need to switch. Cloudflare Workers remains a perfectly valid deployment option with no announced deprecation.
If you’re on Akamai and haven’t yet deployed Tag Gateway: The EdgeWorkers integration removes the need to add Cloudflare as a secondary vendor — worth deploying now.
If your infrastructure is primarily on GCP: The one-click GCP setup is the cleanest path, particularly if you’re also running server-side GTM on Cloud Run.
If you haven’t deployed Tag Gateway yet at all: Start with our original guide for the full conceptual overview, then choose your CDN based on what you already run.
If you want help choosing and implementing the right Tag Gateway configuration for your infrastructure, book a free consultation.