An International GDPR seems increasingly necessary. Stop trying to right size, hide prices, etc; just give straight good deals and sell good products at good prices.
How to track users for analytics in a privacy-first, cookie-less future
21–30 of 53 posts
Re: How to track users for analytics in a privacy-first, cookie-less future
#22We do it a bit differently (French company).
Since the only cookie that is endangered is the « third party cookie », it is very much ok to store anonymous session information in a first party cookie for all anonymous visitors.
So we store page views and utm there, and capture this data in the datawarehouse when (and only when) there is a conversion.
This is also working with returning visitors (who most likely kept the first party cookie).
Re: How to track users for analytics in a privacy-first, cookie-less future
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
This could in theory happen, but in my examples I'm adding the url right after someone converted -- paid for a subscription or completed an order. Those are unlikely to be shared with someone else (ideally). It's arguably more likely that the user will share it with themselves on another device, in which case the overall approach will work well. I should also point out that the url tracker isn't meant to be persisted…
Then I'm a little lost. I had thought a big part of this (your "Stitch anonymous data to users once they convert" picture and around it) was to be able to backtrack anonymous users once they identify themselves. Even if they identify themselves via ordering something, is it an unusual workflow to share a link after? For example "I got this new coffee, I'm excited, here's the link to what I ordered my friend!"
Well your tracking a user via the Anonymous id. Once you see a link (checkout url, order link, form submission, etc) you create a link.
Now you have a list of cookies, their linked email at a moment in time. Then you create a table that has the cookie and who it maps to from a timestamp to a timestamp. This is then used to update the past and future identities. Think multi-user, multi-device in time.
So in the example you gave, the user who opens that links becomes tied to that cookie from the time they open the order to the next linked event. This is really critical because it will continue to stitch the users identity over time.
If link sharing is happening a lot, you can choose to not use that linkage foe identity resolution.
Does this help clarify the approach?
Re: How to track users for analytics in a privacy-first, cookie-less future
#24Will privacy be the future? I feel browser tracking will simply become less relevant in the future. I can't explain why. I'm sure of one thing though: the government will know more about us.
Re: How to track users for analytics in a privacy-first, cookie-less future
#25We do it a bit differently (French company). Since the only cookie that is endangered is the « third party cookie », it is very much ok to store anonymous session information in a first party cookie for all anonymous visitors. So we store page views and utm there, and capture this data in the datawarehouse when (and only when) there is a conversion. This is also working with returning visitors (who most likely kept t…
Love it! This is super similar but we allow many different layers of conversions. So anytime we bridge systems you can connect the user.
This is critical with the many browsers, devices and so on.
In e-commerce we see that emails have such high conversion rates but they are often opened on the phone then the user buys on the browser without clicking. These situations are captured by doing the many layers of identity resolutions
Re: How to track users for analytics in a privacy-first, cookie-less future
#26I mean at the end of the day whether you store it in the cookie or the URL it’s still persistent key value storage for tracking purposes, so I don’t see why the EU’s stance would be any different. It’s effectively still a cookie. Some activities and cookies are allowed by GDPR without requesting consent, and anonymous analytics (even google analytics) is included in this, so you don’t actually even need a cookie bann…
Honestly putting the cookie as a param is pretty clever.
The challenge with cookies is there are often many cookies that point to one person. Imbedded browsers, multiple devices, cookies being refreshed by browsers. So seeing the full journey requires stitching all the cookies
Re: How to track users for analytics in a privacy-first, cookie-less future
#27I mean at the end of the day whether you store it in the cookie or the URL it’s still persistent key value storage for tracking purposes, so I don’t see why the EU’s stance would be any different. It’s effectively still a cookie. Some activities and cookies are allowed by GDPR without requesting consent, and anonymous analytics (even google analytics) is included in this, so you don’t actually even need a cookie bann…
In addition, if you are using Saas products like Shopify, you already have unique urls for carts and orders so you can also use that without any additional engineering.
Re: How to track users for analytics in a privacy-first, cookie-less future
#28Author here - we've been able to identify anonymous users pretty consistently once they convert to becoming users. This talks about our approach and how to do it, while still following all the rules around tracking cookies, etc…
Why do you talk about consent with regards to cookies only? GDPR deals with so much more with regards to tracking and identifiable information. For example this quote from the article: "Add a unique identifier to all urls on your site when you know who the user is." I don't see how our legal would allow us to do this with European customers without explicit opt-in consent since this kind of tracking and data processi…
Because most people haven't read GDPR or similar laws, and play it by the ear. Considering GDPR is often called the cookie law means people who dom't read the law, and don't hire lawyers end up doing things like this.
What is the EU going to do anyway? I've yet to see any meaningfull challenge from EU about GDPR.
Re: How to track users for analytics in a privacy-first, cookie-less future
#29An International GDPR seems increasingly necessary. Stop trying to right size, hide prices, etc; just give straight good deals and sell good products at good prices.
How is a company supposed to determine what 'good' prices are though? Should they just be covering their costs? Should they just be covering their costs + x%? Sure they could base it off what the rest of the market is doing but where is the market establishing their prices?
I don't disagree that price gouging occurs in many markets - and I agree that an international GDPR would be beneficial to people - but good pricing also doesn't just occur naturally it's a product of experimentation.
Re: How to track users for analytics in a privacy-first, cookie-less future
#30> Said another way, our customers are able to stitch historical anonymous data to 95% of their converted users–this is even in the last few weeks after all the Apple device and browser privacy updates.
When companies talk about how they anonymize data before uploading it to the cloud, so it can’t be traced back to you, they should get sued. It is so easy to connect data to their sources with just a little bit more information