Returning visitors

This page explains the one switch that makes Clear Saga set a cookie, so you can decide whether to turn it on, tell your visitors, and answer a request to see or delete what is stored.

What the switch does #

Normally a visitor is recognised for one day. With Remember returning visitors on, the script keeps one cookie, clearsaga_v, in the browser of a visitor who agreed. It holds one letter for the consent choice it was set under and a long random id. The server never stores that id as sent. It stores a keyed hash of it that only this site can produce.

Each id becomes a profile: first and last visit, the number of visits, and their places, devices, sources and pages. A profile holds no name and no email, only a random id. The name and picture you see are made up from that id. Giving a visitor a real name or email is not built, see what works today.

Turn it on #

1. Open Settings, Visitors, switch on Remember returning visitors (uses a cookie), choose how consent is handled and click Save.
2. Open Settings, Installation, copy the snippet again and replace the tag on your site. The cookie needs the full script at /js/script.full.js. The light script never sets one.

A change can take up to 5 minutes to reach your pages.

Setting a cookie can need the visitor's consent first, for example in the European Union. Your site is responsible for telling its visitors and answering their requests. This is not legal advice.

How consent is handled #

• Follow Shopify's consent banner. On every page the script asks Shopify's customer privacy API whether analytics is allowed. Only theme pages are covered, not checkout. If that API fails to load on a page, a choice made there is picked up from the next page on.
• My own banner. Your site calls one function when the visitor accepts and again when they withdraw. Until the first call a visitor is counted without the cookie. Once accepted, the cookie itself is the answer on later pages.
• Not needed. The cookie is set on the first page view. Choose this only if your site needs no consent for it.

The two calls for your own banner:

window.clearsaga?.remember?.(true)
window.clearsaga?.remember?.(false)

Write them exactly like this: the function exists only in the full script, and only counts under "My own banner". No consent platform is connected for you, see what works today.

Changing the choice later removes cookies set under the earlier one on each visitor's next page view, so every visitor starts a new profile.

Honest limits #

• A browser keeps the cookie for up to 400 days after a visit.
• Safari, and every browser on an iPhone or iPad, deletes it after 7 days without a visit, and after 1 day when the visitor arrived from an ad click. Someone who comes back later is a new visitor.
• Only pages served over https are remembered.
• A browser that sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track is never counted at all, so it is never remembered.
• At most 3 remembered visitors a day are accepted from one browser on one network, so invented ids cannot fill the list.

The Visitors pages #

The tiles follow the selected period: Remembered visits, First visits, Returning visits, Visitors and Not remembered. A visit is returning when the same visitor had an earlier remembered visit. "Not remembered" counts visits without a cookie behind them: no consent, no answer yet, the light script, a page on plain http, or a browser that no longer had the cookie.

The list under them shows everyone the site remembers, latest visit first, whatever the period.

A row opens the profile: visits, conversions, first and last seen, places, devices, sources, and the journey, each visit with its pages and custom events in order. A visit lists up to 50 pages and as many events, and missing-page hits are left out. The totals cover the newest 200 visits. An order's journey also reaches a remembered visitor's earlier visits.

On Realtime, the live visitor card adds the visit count and a link to the profile.

Find or delete a visitor #

A visitor who asks what you hold about them can send you the value of their clearsaga_v cookie, found in the browser's settings for your site. Paste it into Find a visitor by cookie value on Settings, Visitors. The value is checked on the server and never saved or logged.

Delete this visitor, on the profile or in the lookup answer, removes the profile and unlinks its visits, and that cookie is never linked again on this site. What it does not do:

• The visits and page views stay, as visits without a visitor. Totals on other pages do not change. On the Visitors page they move to Not remembered.
• The cookie stays in the browser until your site's script deletes it or it expires.

Delete all remembered visitors asks you to type the site's domain. It removes every profile, and no cookie still in a browser leads back to an old one. The list and the remembered numbers start again from zero.

Otherwise a profile unseen for 13 months is removed; its visits stay, unlinked.

What a visitor can do #

• Withdraw through your banner. The script tells the server to forget them, then deletes the cookie. This works even when the workspace is over its allowance or the visitor matches an exclusion rule, and it never counts toward usage.
• Delete the cookie in their browser. The old profile stays until you delete it or it expires.
• Send you the cookie value.
• Stop all counting with the opt-out switch.

A withdrawal does not reach the server when the bot filter refuses the request, or above 120 hits a minute from one visitor. The cookie is still deleted. With Global Privacy Control, Do Not Track or the opt-out switch set, the script does not run at all: nothing is sent, and a cookie set earlier stays, unread.

Switching it off #

Switching off stops new visits being linked at once, and the Visitors pages show a short notice. Profiles are kept until you use "Delete all remembered visitors". The lookup and both deletes keep working.

Keep the full script installed for a while: it deletes the cookie on each visitor's next page. A browser that has learnt the switch is off sends no withdrawal, so a stored profile stays until you delete it.

Through the API #

visitors.summary, visitors.list and visitors.get read the tiles, the list and a profile, and answer 409 feature_off while the switch is off. Changing the switch, the lookup and the deletes are dashboard only. See the visitors operations.

Next: Privacy, Realtime, Managing a site