Generate first-party device IDs
Adobe Experience Cloud applications have traditionally generated cookies to store device ids using different technologies, including:
- Third-party cookies
- First-party cookies set by an Adobe server using a domain name’s CNAME configuration
- First-party cookies set by JavaScript
Recent browser changes restrict the duration of these types of cookies. First-party cookies are most effective when they are set using a customer-owned server using a DNS A/AAAA-record as opposed to a DNS CNAME. The first-party device ID (FPID) functionality allows customers implementing Adobe Experience Platform Web SDK to use device IDs in cookies from servers using DNS A/AAAA-records. These IDs can then be sent to Adobe and used as seeds to generate Experience Cloud IDs (ECIDs), which remains the primary identifier in Adobe Experience Cloud applications.
Here is a quick example of how the functionality works:
-
An end-user’s browser requests a web page from a customer’s web server or CDN.
-
Customer generates a device id (FPID) on their web server or CDN (the web server should be tied to the domain name’s DNS A/AAAA-record).
-
Customer sets a first-party cookie to store the FPID in the end user’s browser.
-
Customer’s Adobe Experience Platform Web SDK implementation makes a request to the Platform Edge Network and either:
- Includes the FPID in the identity map.
- Configures a CNAME for their Web SDK requests and configures their datastream with the name of thier FPID cookie.
-
Experience Platform Edge Network receives the FPID and uses it to generate an Experience Cloud ID (ECID).
-
Platform Web SDK response sends the ECID back to the end-user’s browser.
-
If the
idMigrationEnabled=true, Platform Web SDK uses JavaScript to store the ECID as theAMCV_cookie in the end-user’s browser. -
In the event the
AMCV_cookie expires, the process repeats itself. As long as the same first-party device ID is available, a newAMCV_cookie is created with the same ECID value as before.
NOTEidMigrationEnabled does not need to be set to true to use FPID. With idMigrationEnabled=false you may not see a AMCV_ cookie, however, and will need to look for the ECID value in the network response.For this tutorial, a specific example using the PHP scripting language is used to show how to:
- Generate a UUIDv4
- Write UUIDv4 value to a cookie
- Include the cookie value in the identity map
- Validate the ECID generation
Further documentation related to first-party device IDs can be found in the product documentation.
Generate a UUIDv4
PHP does not have a native library for UUID generation, so these code examples are more extensive than what would likely be required if another programming language was used. PHP was chosen for this example because it is a widely supported server-side language.
When the following function is called, it generates a random UUID version-4:
<?php
function guidv4($data)
{
$data = $data ?? random_bytes(16);
$data[6] = chr(ord($data[6]) & 0x0f | 0x40); // set version to 0100
$data[8] = chr(ord($data[8]) & 0x3f | 0x80); // set bits 6-7 to 10
return vsprintf('%s%s-%s-%s-%s-%s%s%s', str_split(bin2hex($data), 4));
}
?>
Write UUIDv4 value to a cookie
The following code makes a request to the function above to generate a UUID. It then sets the cookie flags decided upon by your organization. If a cookie has already been generated, then the expiration is extended.
<?php
if(!isset($_COOKIE['FPID'])) {
$cookie_value = guidv4(openssl_random_pseudo_bytes(16));
$arr_cookie_options = array (
'expires' => time() + 60*60*24*30*13,
'path' => '/',
'domain' => 'mysiteurl.com',
'secure' => true,
'httponly' => true,
'samesite' => 'lax'
);
setcookie($cookie_name, $cookie_value, $arr_cookie_options);
$_COOKIE[$cookie_name] = $cookie_value;
}
else {
$cookie_value = $_COOKIE[$cookie_name];
$arr_cookie_options = array (
'expires' => time() + 60*60*24*30*13,
'path' => '/',
'domain' => 'mysiteurl.com',
'secure' => true,
'httponly' => true,
'samesite' => 'lax'
);
setcookie($cookie_name, $cookie_value, $arr_cookie_options);
}
?>
Include the Cookie Value in the Identity Map
The final step is to use PHP to echo the cookie value to the Identity Map.
{
"identityMap": {
"FPID": [
{
"id": "<? echo $_COOKIE[$cookie_name] ?>",
"authenticatedState": "ambiguous",
"primary": true
}
]
}
}
IMPORTANTFPID.FPID is a reserved identity namespace which is not visible in the interface lists of identity namespaces.Validate ECID generation
Validate the implementation by confirming that the same ECID is generated from your first-party device ID:
- Generate an FPID cookie.
- Send a request to Platform Edge Network using Platform Web SDK.
- A cookie with the format
AMCV_<IMSORGID@AdobeOrg>is generated. This cookie contains the ECID. - Make a note the cookie value that is generated and then delete all cookies for your site except the
FPIDcookie. - Send another request to Platform Edge Network.
- Confirm the value in the
AMCV_<IMSORGID@AdobeOrg>cookie is the sameECIDvalue as in theAMCV_cookie that was deleted. If the cookie value is the same for a given FPID, the seeding process for the ECID was successful.
For more information about this feature, see the documentation.
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