Advanced information on Customer ID
User-centric tracking
The user-centric tracking becomes detached from the conventional cookie technology and thus allows to recognize visitors even if they use different browsers or devices or delete their cookies. This facilitates a better measurement and delimitation of visitor information.
User behavior has changed considerably in recent years, as the mobile sector, among other things, has gained enormous importance. Long gone are the days in which online shops and news portals were used almost exclusively via the local desktop computers. Nowadays, most consumers use the Internet on the go via their smartphones or tablets - and the rising trend is continuing. A modern tracking must take this into account. With the conventional cookie technology, the user tracking remains limited to the tracking on a device. A visitor who visits a website via a smartphone, tablet, or desktop computer, is measured as three visitors according to the cookies created. Therefore, it is much more difficult (or rather lengthy) to gain in-depth data about this user, as when a single person can be associated with all his visits. Higher accuracy in the visitor analysis specifies not only your traffic data but also allows you in less time to learn more about your visitors.
User-centric tracking now takes the approach of combining cookie and database information to eliminate the drawbacks of traditional - and often distorted - visitor recognition so that you can get accurate information about your visitors.
Customer ID
The Customer ID is the basis for all user-related analyses. Usually, an encrypted login information (for example, email address) is used as Customer ID, to which additional information can be added as categories. But also any other values can be used as Customer ID, provided it uniquely identifies the visitor and is available for tracking on the page.
Since the email address is not passed in clear text to Mapp Intelligene, but as SHA256-hash, there is usually no reason for privacy concerns
The technical prerequisite for cross-device recognition of visitors is the transmission of a Customer ID. It automatically supplements the cookie for a visitor generated by Mapp. Even if a visitor deletes his cookie or uses a new device, he is recognizable by the Customer ID.
The following graph illustrates this process:
Process Sequence
Several cookies have been generated for the visitor, depending on how many different browsers or devices he uses. For each of these cookies there is an ID; when the visitor logs in, this ID can be linked to the customer. The Customer ID is only an intermediate step so that the visitor does not have to log in every time he or she visits the site. It is used to link the individual user device or browser with the Visitor ID.
The actual number of visitors is based on the Visitor ID, to which several devices or browsers are assigned. If one of these devices is detected, the visit in question is also linked to the Visitor ID. The Customer ID is only necessary for the first link (green arrows), after that the mapping works independently (gray arrows).
The following table provides an overview of IDs in the user-centric tracking process:
| ID | Description | Evaluation in Intelligence |
|---|---|---|
| Cookie ID | The Mapp cookie ID is unique for each browser and each device. It is used for visitor recognition. |
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| Customer ID | This ID is provided with the pixel request when the visitor registers or logs in and is unique for each user. |
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| Visitor ID | User-centered tracking uses the Visitor ID for visitor recognition. The Visitor ID is linked once to the ID of the Mapp cookie via the customer number. |
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The Customer ID can be registered for each page request. To use your Customer IDs, you must pass a unique ID from your shop or content management system to the tracking pixel. Depending on your customer management setup, you can use customer numbers, e-mail addresses and the like as unique identifiers.