Beacon API

The Beacon is primarily used for tracking email or ad impressions. It’s most useful where you know who is doing the event, but don’t have access to JavaScript or other server-side languages.

Our Beacon is an invisible 1×1 pixel image that you can embed in your email or ad campaigns. When the image loads, it records the event happening in Kissmetrics.

<img src="https://trk.kissmetrics.io/e?_k=YOUR_API_KEY&_n=Viewed+E-mail&_p=john%40smith.com"/>

The beacon is a standard <img> tag. The URL points to our tracking servers at trk.kissmetrics.io. Please refer to our API Specifications for how to pass the additional parameters, like who did the event and the name of the event.

Caveats

Notice that in the example above, you provide the identity of the person doing the event. Because of this, the Beacon is not a replacement to our JavaScript Library, which generates a randomized ID for unknown visitors.

Keep in mind that many email clients don’t load images immediately, so your reported numbers will likely be lower than your actual views.