API Specifications
To be unobtrusive to your end-users, we’ll respond with a 200 OK status, even if some of these parameters are “incorrect”. The response will be a 1x1 GIF image (to power our “Beacon API”).
Not to be confused with our URL API, which works with our JavaScript Library to tag links people use to reach your website.
Important: Since you are hitting a URL, remember that any special symbols like + and @ in your parameters should be URL-encoded.
Recording an Event
Method URL:
http://trk.kissmetrics.com/ehttps://trk.kissmetrics.com/e
Parameters (GET)
| Parameters | Format | Necessary? | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
_k |
string | Yes | Your API key |
_p |
255 char string | Yes | Person doing the event |
_n |
URL-encoded string | Yes | Name of the event |
_t |
integer | optional | Timestamp in seconds after Unix epoch in UTC time (a “Unix Timestamp”). Note: You will also need to include the _d option listed below for the timestamp to be applied. |
_d |
0 or 1 | optional | Set to 1 if you’re manually passing us the timestamp. It’s used when logging events that occurred in the past. |
| (Anything) | URL-encoded string | optional | Set an arbitrary value to an arbitrary user property |
Example
http://trk.kissmetrics.com/e?_k=api-key&_p=bob&_n=Signed+Up&gender=male&_t=1262304000&_d=1
This records that the user bob did the event Signed Up and his gender was male and this all happened on midnight of January 1, 2010 UTC.
Please be aware of how our processing servers detect duplicate events.
Setting Properties
Method URL:
http://trk.kissmetrics.com/shttps://trk.kissmetrics.com/s
Parameters (GET)
| Parameters | Format | Necessary? | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
_k |
string | Yes | Your API key |
_p |
255 char string | Yes | Person doing the event |
| (Anything) | URL-encoded string | optional | Set an arbitrary value to an arbitrary user property |
_t |
integer | optional | Timestamp in seconds after Unix epoch in UTC time (a “Unix Timestamp”). |
_d |
0 or 1 | optional | Set to 1 if you’re manually passing us the timestamp. It’s used when logging events that occurred in the past. |
Example
http://trk.kissmetrics.com/s?_k=api-key&_p=bob&gender=male&_t=1262304000&_d=1
This records that the user bob got the property gender with the value set to male and this happened on midnight of January 1, 2010 UTC.
Please be aware of how our processing servers detect duplicate properties.
Aliasing Users
Method URL:
http://trk.kissmetrics.com/ahttps://trk.kissmetrics.com/a
Parameters (GET)
| Parameters | Format | Necessary? | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
_k |
string | Yes | Your API key |
_p |
255 char string | Yes | One of the person’s identities |
_n |
255 char string | Yes | Another of the person’s identities |
Example
http://trk.kissmetrics.com/a?_k=api-key&_p=User+12345&_n=bob%40bob.com
This tells us that events done by User 12345 and events done by bob@bob.com were done by the same person. If you log events or properties to either ID, they all refer back to the same one person.
Calling alias is not reversible, and should be used with some caution.
When to Alias
There are only a handful of scenarios where it is appropriate to directly call alias:
- You implement Kissmetrics using more than one source of data: combining data from an external KM integration, server-side libraries, and/or our JavaScript library.
- You are identifying people by their email address, and they update their email address within your app.
- You change your tracking schema to identify people…say, from email address to username.
Notes:
- After calling
alias, the new alias does not appear in a person’s list of Customer IDs unless the new alias has triggered an event or has properties set on it. - It’s fine to call
aliasmore than once with the same pair of identities. - It’s natural if a person has more than one alias.
- The order you pass the two arguments does not matter.
URL Builder
Here is a form to help demonstrate building individual tracking URLs.