Google Analytics in a cookie-free environment (brightscript)

Question

I'm implementing analytics event and page view tracking on a Roku box (brightscript). That part isn't so important, but know that JS is not an option, nor is cookie setting. I can set variables, but they're not typical cookies. Ok - so I've implemented a great solution (google-analytics-for-roku-developers/) and all is well - EXCEPT!!

Analytics doesn't seem to track uniques, and is listing ZERO. It is tracking events beautifully, however :)

Here's a sample of my URI request (decoded for clarity):

http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmwv=1&utmn=1736644096&utmsr=720p HDTV&utmsc=24-bit&utmul=en-us&utmje=0&utmfl=-&utmdt=RokuPageView&utmhn=Home&utmr=-&utmp=Home&utmac=UA-5035974-13&utmcc=__utma=1394882688.2097034752.1347384621.1347384621.1347384621.2;+__utmb=1394882688;+__utmc=1394882688;+__utmz=1394882688.1347384621.2.2.utmccn=(direct)|utmcsr=(direct)|utmcmd=(none);+__utmv=1394882688.13C1CJ109560;

so, question #1 - I understand from the docs that the __utma is the element that tracks uniques. Do you see anything there that's wrong?

question #2 - The development code I implemented sends a NEW random cookie for EACH EVENT. That seems wrong to me. I'm considering changing it to a session-based cookie that persists through all events. That's when I'm way beyond my understanding. Any guidance on this?

Answer 1

I think the answer to #2 is the answer to #1. Basically, you need to emulate how a browser handles cookies within your code. A "session cookie" is just a cookie, that is, a value passed as an HTTP header along with the request and response -- what makes it a session cookie is that it's expiration date is set to the past, which tells the browser to delete it when the browser instance closes.

Cookies are pretty straightforward -- a mechanism to get around the fact that HTTP is stateless (has no memory). If you pass an HTTP header Set-cookie: <value> in the response, the client is supposed to remember the value and pass it back in a Cookie: <value> header in subsequent requests. (There's a bit more to cookies relating to domains and expiration, and so on, but it's not that much).

So if your client (the Roku) has some mechanism for persistance, then you just need to store any new cookie, then before setting a new random one, check the header and if the cookie has been stored, just send it back as is. You'll probably need to implement some sort of task that cleans up expired cookies periodically, and so on.

Do not fear the cookie. It's just a header (with browser-imparted magical powers).