There may be parts of your application that don't require a login. This article details how Pendo can deliver value for usage analytics and guides with anonymous users (visitors).
Note: Anonymous visitors aren't currently supported in Pendo Feedback.
Visit the Pendo Academy for a video on anonymous visitors in Pendo. If you're on our US domain, visit the US Pendo Academy. If you're on our EU domain, visit the EU Pendo Academy.
Anonymous Visitor IDs
Pendo relies on your application to provide a Visitor ID value. When a Visitor ID isn't provided in the Pendo install script ("snippet"), for example, when an empty string is the set value, Pendo provides an anonymous Visitor ID in the following format: _PENDO_T_ID' (for example, _PENDO_T_mvugjpoysuT). If the default value VISITOR-UNIQUE-ID is sent, Pendo also considers this as no visitor ID being provided and generates an anonymous ID.
Enable anonymous visitor data
Only Admins can enable anonymous visitor data in Pendo. Navigate to Settings > Subscription Settings and select Show Anonymous Visitor Data. There's also an option to show guides to anonymous visitors here.
If there is more than one application in the subscription:
- The Show Anonymous Visitor Data setting is at the subscription level and applies to all applications.
- The Show Guides to Anonymous Visitors setting appears at the application level.
Pendo then shows anonymous visitors in two default filters:
- Everyone shows both identified and anonymous users.
- Everyone (Anonymous Visitors Only) shows only anonymous users.
You can also create custom segments to include anonymous users.
If you don't want anonymous data, send the Visitor ID metadata through the install script ("snippet"). The install script should be available on all URLs that you intend to have Pendo installed on. For more information about the install script, see the Developer's guide to installing Pendo.
Anonymous visitors count towards the subscription’s MAU total if you select Show Anonymous Visitor Data in your Subscription Settings.
Show guides to anonymous visitors
You can also show guides to anonymous visitors by enabling the application-level setting:
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Navigate to Settings > Subscription Settings from the bottom of the left-side navigation.
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Open the Applications tab.
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Find and open the relevant app from your Applications list. This opens the App Details tab by default.
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Select Show Guides to Anonymous Visitors.
Once enabled, you can see Anonymous Visitors as part of your segment selection. Enabling the ‘Show Guides to Anonymous Visitors’ setting does not impact your Monthly Active Users (MAU) total. However, most users choose also to enable the Show Anonymous Visitor Data setting so they can track the effectiveness of their guides for anonymous visitors.
As a reminder, enabling the Show Anonymous Visitor Data setting does result in Anonymous visitors counting towards the MAU total
Open and re-save the segment for each guide you want to show to anonymous users.
Frequently asked questions
How are anonymous visitors tracked?
Pendo saves and tracks anonymous Visitors at the browser level using local storage and cookies. If the same person comes back to your application, Pendo attempts to use the same anonymous Visitor ID for them.
A single visitor can be associated with multiple anonymous IDs because a new ID is generated if Pendo can't access the saved anonymous ID or when a cookie isn't present.
To maximize Pendo's ability to track anonymous visitors, we recommend that you don't disable agent cookies or agent user identification persistence in application-level settings or in the Pendo install script ("snippet").
Can you use the same anonymous ID across subdomains?
You can use the same anonymous ID across subdomains by adding cookieDomain"
'.example.com' to the Pendo install script ("snippet").
This only works for subdomains. The same anonymous ID won't be reused across multiple domains. If your application has multiple domains, the same person visiting both sites is represented by different anonymous Visitor IDs.
Can you connect anonymous Visitor IDs to identified Visitor IDs?
You can't connect anonymous Visitor IDs to identified Visitor IDs. If a person visits your site first as an anonymous user and then signs in, the user's activities are split between two Visitor IDs: one anonymous and one identified.