Browser Detection

One of the more popular (yet optional) things to track is the web browser that your visitors are using when visiting your site. This information is readily available through a little use of JavaScript; you can parse navigator.userAgent and navigator.appVersion, among other variables. This QuirksMode.org article is a great reference and resource that you can use to fetch users’ browser information.

If you choose to use their BrowserDetect plugin, you could then pass along the appropriate values to KISSmetrics as a property, perhaps like this:

<script>
_kmq.push(['set', {'Browser' : BrowserDetect.browser + " " +
  BrowserDetect.version }]);
</script>

For me, this would currently set the property “Browser” with the value “Chrome 15”.

If you’re familiar with this, then you can apply the same principles to filter out bot or spider traffic, or even detect the visitor’s operating system.

Screen Resolution

Designers may be interested in knowing the screen resolution in which visitors are viewing their sites. This can inform them to optimize the site for the popular resolutions. The data is available in the JavaScript variables screen.width and screen.height:

<script>
_kmq.push(['set', {'Screen Resolution' : screen.width + " x " +
  screen.height }]);
</script>

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Filed under How To's, Examples, and Best Practices