Recently, one of our developer customers asked that. And he’s right to wonder.
As you know, client-side data has become unstable and unreliable. You’re seeing discrepancies between systems. Event tracking fails. Forms break. Ads disappear. Analytics are spotty and confusing. Your work is increasingly under threat, and it’s only going to get more challenging going forward.
Confection can help you keep delivering your best work. Our innovative architecture collects, stores, and distributes data in a way that’s unaffected by client-side disruptions involving cookies, cross-domain scripts, and device IDs. Confection is also compliant with global privacy laws like GDPR, CCPA, and LGPD so it’s good for people too.
And it integrates with the tools you already use. There’s no need to switch systems. Just plug in, power up, and keep your sites and apps running strong.
Generate better, more reliable data for your customers. Rejuvenate your website and app data. Start building better with Confection.
Our client-side integration with Mixpanel lost ~50% of events to ad blockers. I know this because of our “Upgrade To Paid” event: the actual subscription count in Stripe was always around half of what showed up in Mixpanel. Now I’m removing all client-side analytics.
— Gary Bernhardt (@garybernhardt) December 15, 2020
“How much client-side data goes missing? How much can Confection help developers recover?”
The short answer is, “A lot.”
Modern browser sessions routinely block almost 100,000 cookies, pixels, scripts, and trackers (that we know of). This affects over 1,000 martech companies, many of whom are household names.
In the video, we can see this in action. We’re browsing a Fortune 100 website using a privacy-first browser called Brave. This browser blocks cookies and certain scripts and restricts persistent identifiers such as browser, user, and device IDs.
As you can see, the following marketing partners can’t send data to this customer’s account: Bazaarvoice, Dun & Bradstreet, ImmuniWeb, Xandr, SundaySky, Google Tag Manager, Ensighten, Oracle/Eloqua, Teads, Dstillery, LiveRamp, Outbrain, Quantserve, Nielsen, Marin Software, Yahoo, Krux Digital, Clicktale, Alibaba, Invoca, and Bing, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google ads.
This state of affairs impacts client-side data in profound ways. It’s creating a staggering amount of financial waste, and it’s why you’re seeing disruptions.
See Confection in action.
If a form relies on one or more third-party scripts, that form might not load at all. Confection knows when a browser is preventing a form from rendering. When this happens, our app converts the blocked form into a static, local one. There’s no need to spend time replicating and replacing forms you’ve already created.
If a form sends data to a third-party server, that form might fail to send any information when the user clicks “Submit.” Confection works around this by collecting all form data in real time.
To see this in action:
1 Open this page in a privacy-forward browser like Brave or max out your preferred browser’s security settings and then (re)load this page. If you’re unsure where to start, this series of short, easy-to-read articles can help.
2 Select a form from the dropdown menu, and enter some information. (If you see a form, you’re not having the first issue we outline above.) As you enter data, you’ll see it immediately appear in the purple box.
3 After you’ve added some form data, click the “Show API Data” button. In the blue box, you’ll see the JSON structured snippet we use to pass usable data back to our customers. Use this in your CRM, marketing automation solution, programmatic ads, custom app/API, or in 1,000s of apps via Zapier, Pipedream, and Integromat.
Privacy-first environments block certain types of engagement activity, parameters, and other browser events, especially if they rely on cookies, custom JavaScript, and third-party servers and scripts. This limits — and, in some cases, completely undermines — the utility of many marquee data services.
Even in the most privacy-forward browsing environments, Confection can work around these limitations. To see this in action:
1 Open this page in a privacy-forward browser like Brave or max out your preferred browser’s security settings and then (re)load this page. If you’re unsure where to start, this series of short, easy-to-read articles can help.
2 Click any service name. This will send a generic pageview event to that system (middle box) and Confection (top box). Note that, even when the data service fails, Confection is able to write the event to its server.
3 If you click the “Show API Data” button in the blue box, you’ll see the JSON structured snippet we use to pass usable data back to our customers. Use this in your CRM, marketing automation solution, programmatic ads, custom app/API, or in 1,000s of apps via Zapier, Pipedream, and Integromat.
Note, the events
array object value
may be blank, eg: "value": ""
Confection is not malfunctioning. Returning an event value is optional, and the demo does not do so by default.
Track users across devices and domains. Resolve identities without front-end UUIDs, cookies, device IDs, or fingerprinting.
Curious about your own data? While still in a privacy-first browsing environment (see bullets one above), click the “Show API Data” button in the blue box. You’ll see a JSON structured snippet that contains everything we know about you.
If this is your first Confection session, you’ll see information associated with a single UUID (your current one). If this is your second+ session — if you’ve visited this page before, refreshed it, or visited another site where Confection is installed — you’ll see multiple UUIDs linked together. Behind the scenes, Confection uses a blend of predictive algorithms and AI to link UUIDs that have similar traits, assign them probable “likeness” scores of 1-99%, and consolidate them into single user records. No need to worry about persistent front-end browser, user, or device IDs.
Refresh the page. Clear your cache and cookies. Enable the strictest security protocols. Try a different browser. The API output should be the same.
Use this in your CRM, marketing automation solution, programmatic ads, custom app/API, or in 1,000s of apps via Zapier, Pipedream, and Integromat.
Note, the Confection demo doesn’t retrieve all fields and event data for all related UUIDs. What you see is just a sample of what’s available, specifically, email addresses (if available) and scores. Displaying the full set of data to all demo users all the time would create unnecessary performance demands and increase costs. This seems unnecessary given that 90% of this demo data is disposable. Users with accounts can query the Confection API to return all data for a specific UUID.
Using Confection, you’ll experience < 500ms latency between user actions and API availability.
Without using cookies, third-party scripts, or a JS fallback, Confection’s user matching rate is identical to marquee web analytics services. And we use predictive technology and machine learning to identify individual users across browsers, devices, and sessions.
No need to worry about front-end UUIDs, device IDs, or fingerprinting.
Confection is compliant with global data privacy laws such as CCPA, GDPR, and LGPD. We offer customers two ways to collect data:
1 Complete Zero- or First-Party Data
We send all data to an endpoint the customer defines and store no personally identifying information (PII) inside Confection.
2 Full Service
Customers offload total compliance — collection, storage, and distribution — to us. We manage PII data for them, and customers can access it whenever they need it.
No matter which option they choose, all customers have the option to collect, store, and distribute data in accordance with the data protection law of their choice. Each video (below) illustrates one of Confection’s three current options: no compliance/consent (which assumes a user is gaining consent using a different method), CCPA and GDPR compliance, and LGPD compliance.
In addition to helping our customers stay compliant, Confection’s approach is an improvement over generic, all-or-nothing cookie banners.
Businesses
Even if a user opts out of PII collection, continue collecting compliant, anonymous data in a way that’s unaffected by client-side disruptions. There’s no need to worry about cookies, cross-domain scripts, or device IDs.
Users
Opt in and out of data collecting as you see fit. Understand what kinds of information a site is collecting when it starts collecting it. Take action in the moment, fine-tune settings on a site-by-site basis, toggle data sharing as desired, and write all data to — and manage all data using — a single, centralized repository.
We built Confection to work with the apps, platforms, and languages you already use. Instead of disrupting and replacing existing relationships, our product will help you keep using your marketing partners in privacy-first browsing environments. Get up and running in less time than it takes to drink your
1 Set up an account. (Risk free.)
2 Install Confection using one of our quick-start guides (below).
3 Use your account’s API tools, integrations panel, and Zapier, Pipedream, and Integromat to send data to any number of different endpoints.
Get started risk free.