Identifier API - Identify and target visitors on your website through MA

Visitors on your website are never the same, and everyone has a unique way of interacting with your website. As the website owner, it is natural for you to want to understand your customer's actions and preferences. Identifier API allows you to target individuals and gather important information about the actions of your website visitors, enabling you to improve your understanding and meet their requirements more effectively.

When a tracking snippet code is installed on your website as part of website analytics, visitors entering your website will be identified as anonymous visitors if they have not provided their contact details in any sign up forms, regardless of whether they are a long-time visitor or a new visitor. Even though they remain anonymous, a visitor ID is assigned to them, and the anonymous visitor count is increased.

Now, when you want to identify a specific user visiting your site, an Identifier API snippet, a distinct identifier code, is installed on the website. The visitor who is now considered anonymous gets their visitor ID identified using cookie information, and the visitor ID is mapped to their identifier through the identifier API code. This is where the email address is mapped to that particular Visitor.

The system now looks for a match by searching the contacts database, and if the specific email address is discovered, all their past sessions and activity from when they were anonymous will be linked with that email ID. Now, all that information will be mapped and shown in that contact's timeline as well. The visitor will now be recognized as known visitor and a +1 is added to the known visitor count.

Additionally, If a visitor is added as a contact in Zoho Marketing Automation manually, or through import and integration, A contact ID is assigned for the new contact in Marketing Automation, but no website activity will be mapped under the contact as there is no identifier for the contact and therefore no past information. And if the same email linked with the contact is found in the database after installing the API snippet code, the contact ID will be mapped with the previously added visitor ID with all the web data being mapped under the contact's timeline, and it will be reflected in the Known visitor count during the next visit in the web analytics report.

Also, if the specific email address does not exist in the database, a new contact is created with the email address under Marketing Automation, and any future interaction they may have with the website will be mapped under the contact's timeline.

Now, let's learn how it can be setup

Setup identity API

Now, copy and paste the following JavaScript Identifier API code inside your website's JS code:

JS code
JS code
window.pagesense = window.pagesense || [];
window.pagesense.push(['identifyUser', '<name>']);

Please make sure you call this API code after including the Marketing Automation tracking code snippet on your site.

Replace the <name> tag in the above script with the corresponding identifier that you want to associate with the session. For now, the contacts can only be identified using an email address in Marketing Automation in case of identifier API. This email ID will now be mapped with the respective user sessions on your website behavior history and will be tracked under that specific contact in Marketing Automation 2.0.
MA requires a single value string for the <name> tag parameter.
Once the code necessary to track the users using the API has been implemented, you will start seeing the sessions appear in your Timeline section of the contact's profile as shown below.

Let's reconsider the example, where you want to identify visitors coming to your site with their email address and later target them with relevant shopping offers to boost revenue. In this case, you can enter the corresponding <name> tag as 'email' (just for example) in your Identifier API snippet to identify and view their website activity in the contact timeline.

Info: Email address is the sole variable that can be utilized for the identifier API in Marketing Automation 2.0. Phone numbers will also be included in this functionality in the near future.

Note: The Identity API snippet can be installed on your website with the help of your developer.