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- Versioned - each request is versioned so that if non-compatible changes are made to the API, they can continue to support legacy code
- Property Ids - This allows multiple websites to be tracked from the same endpoint
- Client Id - This is a unique identifier for the user and is stored in a cookie on the user's browser. If the user clears their cookies, a new client id is generated. This is used to calculate new vs returning visitors.
- Campaign/Source tracking - By adding url parameters to their url, a site owner can record the source of where the user came to the site from. Sometimes this information can be obtained from the referrer, but in the case of https or redirects, that information can be missing or not accurate. If a user lands on your page with specific campaign and source information, you can be relatively certain thats where they came from. NOTE: These tracking parameters "leak" as urls are copied and shared so switching campaigns regularly is advised.
- Multiple Activities - The most common activity is pageview, but other activities a person performs could be useful as well such as transactions or events.
- Timings - Allows analytics to track dns lookups and page load times.
- Cache Buster - Usually a randomly generated number or timestamp which avoids browser caching of the image being requested
Requirements for Caskalytics Tracking Pixel
- The tracker should pass and store the following dimensions, some of which will be further processed to extract additional information.
- IP Address
- Visitor Id
- Full Page Url
- Page Title
- Full Referring Url
- User Agent String
- These secondary metrics can be extracted from the data stored above
- Hostname (from full page url)
- Path (from full page url)
- Referring Source (from referral url)
- Referring Path (from referral url)
- Standard Campaign Parameters extracted from the Full Page Url
- Campaign
- Source
- Medium
- Content
- Keyword
- OS and Browser data extracted from User Agent
- OS
- OS Version
- Browser
- Browser Version
- Location based from IP Address
- Continent
- Country
- Region (or State)
- City
- Postal / Zip
- Lat, Lon