Does the timeline still work for anonymous visitors before they log in?
Most of our traffic is anonymous and only a small fraction ever signs in. Before I lean on the profile timeline I need to understand how it behaves for people who have not identified yet.
Do anonymous visitors build a usable timeline at all, and what happens to that earlier behaviour once someone finally logs in? I do not want to lose the history the moment they identify.
2 answers
Yes, anonymous visitors get a profile and a timeline from their very first interaction. No login is required, so the browsing history builds up while the person is still anonymous.
When they finally sign in, identity resolution links that anonymous profile to the identified one, and the earlier events are not thrown away. The activity that happened before login stays attached to the resolved profile, so the timeline is continuous across the two states. You end up with one history that spans anonymous browsing and the identified session rather than a fresh start at login.
To fill in the mechanism on the code side: you call identify with a string user id at login, and anonymize on logout. The identify call is what tells Croct these two are the same person, which is what triggers the linking rafael described. As long as you fire it at the right moment the pre-login events flow onto the resolved profile automatically.
That is exactly what I hoped for. Keeping the anonymous behaviour on the profile after they identify is the whole point for us, thanks both.