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L
liamevans11
Level 2
April 20, 2023
Solved

Server Side Cross Domain Tracking

  • April 20, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 5304 views

Hello,

 

I am currently investigating server side tracking, in particular, its ability to overcome Safari's ITP for cross domain tracking. Could HTTP response headers be used to set the MID on domain one and then retrieve it on domain two? There is a similar solution that can be used in Google Analytics using FPID and FPLC cookies but I cannot find any documentation for this specific server side tracking use case for Adobe Analytics/Launch.

 

For example, users on my website go through a quote process on domain A (quote.com) and then the application process is held on domain B (application.com). I currently use client-side cross domain tracking via link decoration to retrieve the MID from domain A on domain B to make sure the sessions are stitched. However, due to Safari's ITP, this cookie expires after 24 hours. Having done research on server side tracking and HTTP response header cookies in particular, it seems like a valid option to circumvent ITP's cookie restrictions and ensure the cookie doesn't expire but I'm not sure if this would work for cross-domain tracking. Could domain B obtain the MID from domain A? Would this prevent Safari's ITP from adding a 24 hour expiration date for the cookie containing the MID?

 

Any guidance/advice on this topic would be much appreciated.

 

Many thanks

Liam

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Best answer by Krishna_Musku

We didn't tried to bypass ITP, as we are monitoring how much is the impact of ITP to our analytics by this process mentioned below:

https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/analytics/technotes/cookies/cookies.html?lang=en

 

But there are some articles on how to bypass Safari ITP

 

ways to bypass ITP:

https://mcgaw.io/blog/bypass-safari-itp-workaround/#gs.vbh6xx

Local-storage tracking is also blocked with ITP 2.3 update

https://impact.com/partnerships/browser-news-what-is-itp-2-3-and-google-chromes-latest-on-tracking/

More on ITP from Webkit:

https://webkit.org/tracking-prevention/#intelligent-tracking-prevention-itp

 

 

2 replies

Krishna_Musku
Community Advisor
Krishna_MuskuCommunity AdvisorAccepted solution
Community Advisor
April 20, 2023

We didn't tried to bypass ITP, as we are monitoring how much is the impact of ITP to our analytics by this process mentioned below:

https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/analytics/technotes/cookies/cookies.html?lang=en

 

But there are some articles on how to bypass Safari ITP

 

ways to bypass ITP:

https://mcgaw.io/blog/bypass-safari-itp-workaround/#gs.vbh6xx

Local-storage tracking is also blocked with ITP 2.3 update

https://impact.com/partnerships/browser-news-what-is-itp-2-3-and-google-chromes-latest-on-tracking/

More on ITP from Webkit:

https://webkit.org/tracking-prevention/#intelligent-tracking-prevention-itp

 

 

Jennifer_Dungan
Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
Jennifer_DunganCommunity Advisor and Adobe Champion
Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
April 20, 2023

From what I understand, Adobe's WebSDK sets server side cookies, but you can also set a client side cookie to help stitch properties together during your rollout.

 

 

Here is a recent session I hosted in User Groups that make WebSDK easier to implement (more like your current client side tracking)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7re4vxZBVk

 

There were also some good sessions at this year's summit:

https://business.adobe.com/summit/2023/sessions.html?Search=web+sdk

 

Here is documentation of the First Party Ids:

https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/experience-platform/edge/identity/first-party-device-ids.html?lang=en

 

L
liamevans11Author
Level 2
April 24, 2023

Hi Jennifer,

 

Thank you for your response. I have just read the documentation related to the FPIDs. This seems like a great way to limit the impact of browser cookie expiration policies. However, the question regarding cross domain tracking still remains. Do you know if it is possible for the Edge Network to retrieve the FPID from the server when a user navigates to our application journey, which sits on a different domain to our quote journey? Would it require the use of a query string parameter?

 

Thanks

Liam

Jennifer_Dungan
Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
Jennifer_DunganCommunity Advisor and Adobe Champion
Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
April 24, 2023

Do you have analytics configured on both domains (quote.com and application.com)?  Are both set up with first party tracking servers (stats.quote.com and stats.application.com)?

 

Because both of these should be connected to your Organization ID, they should be able to identify the same user ID (since the whole concept of the Cloud Ids is to be able to identify users across all the websites in your network)... but that said, the Edge server is all new, and technology is constantly changing (and Safari seems determined to cause havoc with everything)... 

 

So it can't hurt to use something like appendVisitorIDsTo in your process to be safe:

https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/id-service/using/id-service-api/methods/appendvisitorid.html?lang=en

 

I assume this should still work with the Edge server implementation.... 

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