A comprehensive reference for clickstream data, identity resolution, behavioral scoring, and modern analytics infrastructure terms.
The processing layer that transforms raw clickstream events into metrics, scores, and aggregations in real time. In ClickStream, the analytics engine runs on Cloudflare Workers at the edge, processing 26 behavioral scoring models per event — p95 under 3 ms in a CI-enforced benchmark — with no origin server round-trips.
The process of assigning credit for a conversion to one or more marketing touchpoints along the customer journey. Multi-touch attribution models (linear, time-decay, position-based, data-driven) distribute credit across multiple interactions. ClickStream captures 13 ad-platform click ID types (gclid, fbclid, msclkid, ttclid, and more) plus UTM parameters to enable full-path attribution using the identity graph.
Automatic collection of user interactions without manual event instrumentation. ClickStream auto-captures page views, clicks (with element selectors), scroll depth, and form interactions out of the box. No custom code required for standard events.
Real-time scoring models that analyze visitor behavior patterns to generate actionable signals. ClickStream runs 26 models at the edge including intent detection, frustration scoring, engagement metrics, purchase timing prediction, churn risk assessment, and content affinity. Scores update in real time with every interaction (p95 under 3 ms per event in a CI-enforced benchmark).
A database column type that stores binary large objects (arbitrary byte sequences). In the ClickStream schema, blob fields in Analytics Engine store hashed identifiers (HMAC-SHA-256 and MD5 email hashes, hashed phone, IP hash) and signal payloads, while sensitive contact fields are stored separately as AES-256-GCM ciphertext in the dashboard database.
A real-time confidence score (0-100) indicating whether a visitor is a human or automated bot. ClickStream computes bot scores at the edge in two layers: a per-request score built from Cloudflare Bot Management signals, a 158-bot user-agent registry, datacenter-ASN checks, and header consistency — reconciled with a per-session behavioral human-confidence score (mouse dynamics, scroll patterns, interaction timing). Sessions are flagged as bots when the composite score crosses 50.
California Consumer Privacy Act. A state law giving California residents the right to know what personal data is collected, request deletion, and opt out of data sale. ClickStream supports CCPA compliance through consent management, data deletion APIs, and opt-out mechanisms.
A unique identifier appended to destination URLs by ad platforms when a user clicks an ad. Examples include gclid (Google Ads), fbclid (Meta/Facebook), msclkid (Microsoft Ads), and ttclid (TikTok). ClickStream captures 13 ad-platform click ID types automatically — from both the URL and the referrer — for cross-platform attribution.
The sequential record of every page, link, and element a user interacts with during a browsing session. Clickstream data captures the full navigation path — page views, clicks, scroll events, form interactions, and timing between actions — providing a granular picture of user behavior. Raw clickstream data is the foundation of behavioral analytics, identity resolution, and conversion optimization. ClickStream captures, enriches, and scores clickstream data in real time at the edge.
The practice of collecting, analyzing, and deriving insights from clickstream data to understand user behavior, optimize conversion funnels, and personalize experiences. Unlike traditional page-view analytics, clickstream analytics examines the full sequence of interactions — including micro-behaviors like scroll velocity, hover duration, and click patterns — to build a complete picture of visitor intent. ClickStream's platform performs clickstream analytics at the edge with 26 behavioral scoring models, turning raw interaction data into real-time intelligence.
A tool that manages user consent for data collection under privacy regulations (GDPR, CCPA). CMPs display cookie banners, record consent choices, and signal to analytics tools whether tracking is permitted. ClickStream integrates with popular CMPs including OneTrust, Cookiebot, and Osano.
Canonical Name record. A DNS record type that maps a subdomain to another domain name. In analytics, a CNAME record is used to serve tracking scripts from a first-party subdomain (e.g., t.yourdomain.com → feynman.clickstream.com), enabling first-party cookies with full browser support.
A cookie set on the same domain the visitor is browsing (e.g., .yourdomain.com). First-party cookies are fully supported by all browsers, survive Safari ITP and Firefox ETP restrictions, and can persist for up to 400 days — the maximum modern browsers allow. ClickStream sets its cookies server-side on your own tracking subdomain, so they get the full ~400-day lifetime instead of ITP's 7-day cap on JavaScript-set cookies.
A cookie set by a domain other than the one the visitor is browsing. Third-party cookies are blocked by Safari (since 2017), Firefox (since 2019), and being phased out in Chrome. Analytics platforms that rely on third-party cookies see significantly lower visitor recognition.
The ability to recognize and link the same person across multiple devices (desktop, mobile, tablet) into a unified identity profile. ClickStream connects devices using first-party cookies as anchors, supplemented by hashed emails, device signatures, and IP clustering.
Cloudflare D1 is a serverless SQLite database running at the edge. ClickStream uses D1 to store the identity graph (nodes, edges, and person profiles) and dashboard data. Behavioral scores are written to Workers Analytics Engine, and live session state runs in Durable Objects.
A centralized repository for storing large volumes of raw data in its native format. ClickStream stores analytics data in Cloudflare Workers Analytics Engine, with raw-event Parquet exports written to R2 (encrypted per tenant, available on request today; CSV export is self-serve on Growth+). R2's zero egress fees mean exported data can be pulled without per-byte charges.
A probabilistic identifier generated from a combination of browser attributes: screen resolution, installed fonts, WebGL renderer, timezone, language, and platform. Used as a supplementary identity signal when cookies are unavailable. Accuracy varies by device class and is generally higher on desktop than mobile.
A database column type that stores 64-bit floating-point numbers (IEEE 754 double-precision). In the ClickStream schema, double fields are used for behavioral scores, monetary values, and calculated metrics that require decimal precision.
A Cloudflare Workers feature that provides globally unique, single-threaded compute instances with persistent state. ClickStream uses Durable Objects for real-time session management, rate limiting, and the live Signals feed, where strong consistency is required.
An international telephone numbering standard that defines the format for phone numbers (e.g., +14155551234). ClickStream normalizes phone numbers before hashing for identity resolution, so the same number matches regardless of how it was originally formatted.
Processing data at the network edge, close to the end user, rather than in a centralized data center. ClickStream runs on Cloudflare's global edge network (300+ locations), processing behavioral scoring models at ingest — p95 under 3 ms per event in a CI-enforced benchmark — with no origin server round-trips. This eliminates the latency of traditional server-side analytics.
Firefox's privacy feature that blocks third-party tracking cookies, device recognition scripts, and cryptominers by default. ETP is enabled for all Firefox users and caps the lifetime of third-party cookies. First-party cookies (set via CNAME tracking domains) are not affected by ETP.
Data collected directly from your own audience on your own properties. Includes website behavior, purchase history, email interactions, and CRM records. First-party data is the most accurate, privacy-compliant, and valuable data type because you have a direct relationship with the data subject.
General Data Protection Regulation. The EU regulation governing the collection, processing, and storage of personal data for individuals in the European Economic Area. Key requirements include lawful basis for processing, data minimization, right to erasure, and data portability. ClickStream supports GDPR compliance through AES-256-GCM encryption, 90-day TTL on behavioral data, consent management, GDPR erasure APIs, and CSV export on Growth+ (raw-event Parquet exports available on request).
An email address that has been processed through a one-way hash function (typically SHA-256) to create a pseudonymous identifier. HEMs are widely used for identity matching across platforms without exposing the raw email address. ClickStream automatically hashes emails provided via the identify call.
An identity resolution technique that groups multiple visitors who share the same IP address and geographic location into a household unit. Useful for B2C businesses where multiple family members browse from the same network. ClickStream uses IP clustering combined with behavioral patterns to differentiate individual household members.
A data structure that links multiple identifiers for the same person — first-party cookies, hashed emails, phone numbers, device signatures, CRM IDs, and ad platform IDs — into a single unified profile. The identity graph enables cross-device, cross-session, and cross-channel customer recognition.
The process of matching disparate identifiers across devices, sessions, and channels to determine that they belong to the same person. Deterministic matching uses exact identifiers (email, phone). Probabilistic matching uses statistical signals (device signature, IP, behavior). ClickStream combines both approaches anchored to first-party cookies.
Safari's privacy feature, introduced in 2017, that restricts third-party cookie lifetimes and cross-site tracking capabilities. ITP caps third-party cookie persistence to 7 days and applies additional restrictions to cookies set via JavaScript on third-party domains. Server-set first-party cookies on your own tracking subdomain keep the browser's full ~400-day lifetime, avoiding ITP's 7-day cap on JavaScript-set cookies.
Cloudflare Workers KV is a globally distributed key-value store with eventual consistency. ClickStream uses KV for caching frequently accessed data like site configurations, API keys, and feature flags. Cloudflare's own documentation cites typical read latency under 10ms from edge locations.
A device-level identifier provided by mobile operating systems for advertising purposes. Apple's IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers) and Google's GAID (Google Advertising ID) are the two main MAIDs. Since Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework in iOS 14.5, IDFA availability has dropped sharply — industry opt-in estimates hover around 25% of iOS users.
A 128-bit hash function that produces a 32-character hexadecimal digest. While still used by some legacy ad-tech platforms for email hashing, MD5 is considered cryptographically broken and should be replaced with SHA-256 for new implementations. ClickStream supports MD5 hashes for backward compatibility with legacy identity providers.
An architecture where a single instance of software serves multiple customers (tenants), with each tenant's data logically isolated. ClickStream uses a multi-tenant architecture on Cloudflare's edge with per-site AES-256-GCM encryption keys, ensuring complete data isolation between customers while sharing compute infrastructure for efficiency.
Apache Parquet is a columnar storage file format designed for efficient data processing. ClickStream writes raw-event Parquet exports to R2 object storage (per-tenant encrypted; available on request today), in a format directly queryable by tools like BigQuery, Snowflake, and DuckDB. Parquet's columnar format provides excellent compression (typically 5-10x smaller than CSV) and enables fast analytical queries in tools like BigQuery, Snowflake, and DuckDB.
Any data that can be used to identify a specific individual, including name, email address, phone number, IP address, and device identifiers. ClickStream hashes PII (email, phone) before it reaches analytics storage, which holds hashed identifiers only. Raw contact fields are stored separately, AES-256-GCM encrypted with per-site keys and audited, password-gated access.
A technique for setting first-party cookies using a hidden iframe that loads from the tracking subdomain (e.g., t.yourdomain.com). Because the iframe is served from a first-party domain (via CNAME), the cookies it sets are treated as first-party by all browsers, surviving ITP and ETP restrictions with the full ~400-day persistence browsers allow.
Cloudflare R2 is an S3-compatible object storage service with zero egress fees. ClickStream uses R2 as its export data lake, storing per-tenant-encrypted Parquet exports of event data (retained 90 days). Zero egress fees mean exported data can be pulled into any tool without per-byte charges.
The 2020 European Court of Justice ruling (Case C-311/18) that invalidated the EU-US Privacy Shield framework for cross-border data transfers. The ruling requires organizations to implement supplementary measures (such as encryption with customer-held keys) when transferring EU personal data to the United States. ClickStream's per-tenant encryption is the kind of supplementary measure organizations adopt for Schrems II compliance.
A library that developers integrate into their application to enable analytics collection. The ClickStream SDK is available as a script tag — a 344-byte bootstrap loader that pulls the full bundle from your own domain — or as an npm package (@clickstreamhq/sdk, with a ~2.8 KB gzipped core tracker). It auto-captures page views, clicks, scrolls, and form interactions, and provides APIs for custom events, identity tracking, and consent management.
A group of user interactions on a website within a given time frame. Sessions typically end after 30 minutes of inactivity (configurable in ClickStream).
A cryptographic hash function that produces a 256-bit (64-character hexadecimal) digest. SHA-256 is the standard for hashing PII (emails, phone numbers) in identity resolution because it is computationally infeasible to reverse. ClickStream uses SHA-256 (plus per-tenant HMAC-SHA-256 variants) for email and phone hashing in the identity graph, with MD5 supported for legacy interop.
The duration for which a piece of data is considered valid before being expired or deleted. In DNS, TTL determines how long resolvers cache a record. In ClickStream, behavioral scoring data has a ~90-day retention window for privacy compliance. In the identity graph, probabilistic edges decay on TTLs from 7 to 90 days, while deterministic signals like hashed emails persist until erasure.
Urchin Tracking Module query parameters appended to URLs to track the source, medium, campaign, term, and content of marketing traffic. The five standard UTM parameters are: utm_source (traffic origin), utm_medium (marketing medium), utm_campaign (campaign name), utm_term (paid search keyword), and utm_content (ad variation). ClickStream captures all UTM parameters automatically on every page view.
A unique identifier assigned to each visitor, stored in a server-set first-party cookie (_cs_vid) with 400-day persistence — the maximum modern browsers allow. The Visitor ID serves as the primary anchor for the identity graph, linking anonymous browsing sessions to known customer profiles when an identify call is made.
A bidirectional communication protocol that maintains a persistent connection between client and server. ClickStream uses WebSockets for real-time dashboard updates (Live View), enabling instant visibility into visitor activity as events are processed at the edge. WebSocket connections are maintained via Cloudflare Durable Objects.
A serverless compute platform that runs JavaScript at Cloudflare's edge network (300+ locations worldwide). ClickStream's entire analytics pipeline — event ingestion, behavioral scoring, identity resolution, and data routing — runs on Workers. Cold starts are near-zero (per Cloudflare), and each request is processed at the edge location nearest to the visitor.
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