User-Centric Tracking (1): An introduction

This article provides basic information about User-centric Tracking in Mapp Intelligence. Detailed descriptions can be found in the article User Centric Tracking (2): The next level.

What is User-centric Tracking?

With the evolution of how people interact with the internet—shifting from home PCs to a mix of smartphones, tablets, and laptops—traditional cookie-based tracking has struggled to keep up. Recognizing these changes, Mapp Intelligence introduced User-Centric Tracking in Release 4.3.4. This feature enhances user recognition across different browsers, devices, and even after cookies are deleted, resulting in more accurate user data and better insights.

Why is this important?

In today’s digital landscape, users frequently switch between devices—browsing on their phone during the day, and on a tablet or laptop in the evening. Traditional tracking methods see each device as a separate user, leading to fragmented data and incomplete insights. User-centric tracking addresses this by linking each visit, regardless of the device, to the same individual, providing a clearer picture of your audience.

How does User-centric Tracking work?

Clear user identification across different devices using only cookies is challenging for the reasons mentioned earlier. To overcome this, an additional method is introduced—a Customer ID. This ID is used to anonymously register a logged-in user within Mapp Intelligence. To enable User-Centric Tracking, you must first provide a Customer ID to Mapp.

However, this is just the first step. The second step occurs automatically within the Mapp backend. One limitation of the Customer ID is that it is only transmitted when the user logs in. If a user visits the site without logging in, they cannot be identified through the Customer ID alone. To address this, the Customer ID is linked to another ID in the Mapp backend—the Visitor ID—which is then associated with the cookie ID.

As illustrated in the graphic above, a user typically has multiple cookies, depending on the number of browsers or devices they use. Each of these cookies has a unique ID. When the user logs in, this ID can be linked to a Customer ID. To avoid requiring the user to log in for identification at each visit, the Customer ID acts as an interim step, directly linking the end devices to the Visitor ID.

The Visitor ID serves as the actual user identification. Multiple end devices or browsers are assigned to it. When one of these end devices is tracked, the corresponding visit is also allocated to the Visitor ID. This process means that the Customer ID is only needed for the initial link (represented by the green arrows). After this initial linkage, the association between devices and the Visitor ID functions independently of the Customer ID (represented by the grey arrows). Further technical details with examples can be found in the appendix to this document.

End device (Cookie ID)

Unique to each browser or device, traditionally used for visitor recognition.

Analysis in Mapp Intelligence:

• End device Visitor IDs (Dimension)

• Browsers, unique (Metric)

Customer ID

Generated when a user logs in, uniquely identifying each user.

Analysis in Mapp Intelligence:

• Custom Visitor ID (Dimension)

• Customer, unique (Metric)

Visitor ID

The primary identifier in User-Centric Tracking, linking the Customer ID to all devices and browsers used by the visitor.

Analysis in Mapp Intelligence:

• Visitor ID (Dimension)

• Visitors (Metric)

What does User-centric Tracking change?

Switching to User-Centric Tracking typically results in a more accurate reflection of your audience, often showing a decrease in visitor numbers by 2-10%. This doesn’t mean fewer visitors; rather, it indicates that duplicate counts from multiple devices are eliminated. You might also see an increase in visits per user, as all interactions are now correctly attributed to the same individual.

For those who prefer the traditional method, you can still use the “Browsers, Unique” metric to view data based on individual devices or browsers.

If you have a report containing the “Visitors” metric and wish to maintain the old method of visitor allocation, you should replace the “Visitors” metric with the “Browsers, Unique” metric.

When using the Mapp Intelligence raw data export, please note that the “EID” column still displays the cookie-based End Device Visitor ID.

For customer journeys and processes with “Visitor” validity, the calculations will continue to be linked to the cookie-based End Device Visitor ID.

Additional Insights

User-centric Tracking allows you to assess the behavior of your users across devices. Below are two examples that briefly clarify the potential of such analyses.

The first example is a Cross-Device Analysis (above). This allows you to assess which device classes your visitors are using. You must first enter the formulas used in the analysis (i.e. Visitors PC / laptop %) as custom formulas.

The analysis will show you that, for example, 1.59 % of PC/laptop users also visited the page using a tablet during the analysis period. This will provide insights into the combination of devices used by your clients and where it is worth looking for synergy effects.

The second example is a Cross-Device Customer Journey (below). Just like previously for campaign channels, you can also view the use of devices over time. To do so, you will need a pivot table with the dimensions Visitor ID, Device Class, and Visit Duration. Also, use a filter to only assess visitors who were recorded using multiple devices. This analysis shows you which device classes these users used during the analysis period and how they switched between the individual classes. A comparable analysis can also be carried out for the browsers which were used.

In remarketing, selecting the right ID is crucial. For websites, use the End device Visitor ID; for data warehouses, the Custom Visitor ID is more appropriate; and for newsletters, either the Custom Visitor ID or the Email Receiver ID, depending on what your newsletter provider supports.