Reusing the Identities Set by the JavaScript Library

Our JavaScript library attempts to reduce your work in keeping track of unique people:

1. It generates its own anonymous IDs to represent unknown visitors.
2. When you identify an anonymous user, it connects the anonymous ID with the named one you provide, via an alias behind the scenes.
3. It remembers the anonymous or named identities across browsing sessions.

So if you plan to use our server-side libraries or URL API, you can tap into the identities that were created and stored by our JavaScript Library.

JavaScript Functions

• KM.i(): returns the current user’s identity, whether it’s anonymous or not.

Wait For Our JavaScript Library to Load

Since the Kissmetrics script loads asynchronously, you’ll want to make sure that the library has loaded before you try to call KM.i().

To do this, wrap your call to KM.i() in a callback function and push that function to _kmq

<script type="text/javascript">
_kmq.push(function() {
  alert(KM.i()) // Display an alert box with your current KM identity
});
</script>

PHP Example

One of our customers shows how they check for the km_ai cookie using PHP and reuse that ID:

<?php
 if (isset($_COOKIE['km_ai'])) {
  KM::alias($_COOKIE['km_ai'], $email);
   KM::identify($email);
   KM::record('Cart Checkout');
}
?>

Generating Your Own Random Identities

You can choose to generate your own identities server-side. However, do NOT set the km_ai cookie yourself - our JavaScript library expects to set the cookies on its own.

Instead, you can call identify with your generated ID. For example:

_kmq.push(['identify', <?php echo $generated.id ?>])

This treats your random ID as a ‘named’ ID, so you’ll have to explicitly call alias when they truly become identified, after a Signup or Login or Subscription type of event.