Class: TrackingCookie

Inherits:
ActiveRecord::Base
  • Object
show all
Defined in:
app/models/tracking_cookie.rb

Overview

Mirrors a browser cookie installed on the client

Purpose

A User may have many cookies, and it is through these cookies that associated PageView records are tracked.

Behavior

The cookie is tracked through it’s hashed id (hid), and maintains the most recent campaign code passed from the associated client.

Immediately after the cookie is loaded or created, a PageView is generated. It is given the current code of the cookie, if it exists, and if either the cookie itself is new, or the code on it is new (has changed), that PageView is marked as a new visit.

In this way, a PageView will be credited to a campaign code even if it a code is not passed in its actual request. The timeline might look like this:

  1. A client visits the site normally with no campaign code.

- A cookie is created/installed
- A new visit, uncoded page view is created

  1. The client visits another page.

- The installed cookie is loaded
- An uncoded page view is created.

  1. The same client (pre-existing cookie) visits the site with code ABC.

- The installed cookie is loaded, its code updated to ABC.
- A new visit, ABC coded page view is created

  1. The client visits another page.

- The installed cookie is loaded
- An ABC coded page view is created

In this manner, page views are always credited to the most recently loaded code, with the assumption that it was the most recently seen code that prompted the client to (re)visit the site.