Glossary

Terms & definitions

Plain-English definitions of the concepts behind server-side tagging, first-party data collection, identity resolution, and vendor APIs. Bookmark this page or link to specific terms.

_dfid / _dfdid cookies: `_dfid` is Signal’s anonymous visitor-ID cookie (400-day TTL, server-set, ITP-exempt). `_dfdid` is the device-recognition ID cookie used to reconnect visitors after a cookie clear. Both are first-party, `HttpOnly`, `Secure`, `SameSite=Lax`. Learn more →
400-day cookie: The maximum lifetime modern browsers honour for cookies. Chromium, Firefox, and Safari all cap server-set first-party cookies at 400 days regardless of longer `Max-Age` values. Signal’s `_dfid` and `_dfdid` use exactly this cap.
Ad blocker: Browser extension or network-level tool that blocks requests to known advertising and analytics domains. Typically removes 20-40% of conversions from vendor pixel-based tracking. First-party server-side tagging bypasses ad blockers because there is no third-party domain to block.
Anonymous ID: A randomly generated identifier that ties events to a single visitor without revealing their identity. Datafly Signal stores it in the `_dfid` first-party cookie, set server-side so it is exempt from Safari ITP cookie-lifetime caps. Learn more →
Attribution window: The length of time a user’s action (e.g. an ad click) is credited with a resulting conversion. Client-side tracking is capped by cookie lifetimes (7 days in Safari ITP). Signal’s server-set cookies extend this to 400 days. Learn more →
CAPI (Conversions API): Meta’s server-to-server API for sending conversion events directly from your server to Meta’s ad platform, independent of the browser-based Meta Pixel. Solves ad-blocker and iOS privacy restrictions. Learn more →
CDP (Customer Data Platform): A system that unifies customer data from multiple sources into persistent profiles and activates those profiles to downstream tools. Datafly Signal feeds CDPs cleaner, complete data rather than competing with them. Learn more →
CNAME cloaking: The practice of using a customer subdomain (e.g. data.example.com) as a CNAME to a vendor’s tracking endpoint, making the request appear first-party. Once widely used to evade ITP restrictions; now partially mitigated by Safari. Not the same as genuine first-party server-side tagging.
Consent Mode v2: Google’s framework for signalling consent state to Google’s ad and analytics products via four flags: `ad_storage`, `analytics_storage`, `ad_user_data`, `ad_personalization`. Signal supports Consent Mode v2 by enforcing consent both client-side and server-side before each event.
Customer-hosted: A deployment model where the platform runs inside the customer’s own cloud account, not the vendor’s. Datafly Signal’s primary model: you run it in your VPC on AWS, GCP, or Azure, and Datafly never processes your data. Learn more →
Device recognition: Probabilistic re-identification of a visitor using server-side signals (network characteristics, request metadata) after their cookies have been cleared. Signal uses hashed signals stored in the `_dfdid` cookie, configurable per-pipeline with high/medium/low confidence thresholds. Learn more →
EMQ (Event Match Quality): Meta’s score (0-10) for how well the identity parameters on a CAPI event can be matched to a known Meta user. Higher EMQ means better ad optimisation. Achieved by sending more hashed identity signals: email, phone, `_fbp`, `_fbc`, `em`, `ph`, `external_id`, IP, and user agent.
Enhanced Conversions: Google Ads feature that enriches standard conversion events with hashed first-party customer data (email, phone) for improved campaign optimisation. Signal supports Enhanced Conversions for Web and Enhanced Conversions for Leads. Learn more →
fbp / fbc: Meta’s browser-side cookie identifiers. `_fbp` is a persistent browser ID (400-day lifetime when server-set). `_fbc` captures the `fbclid` click ID from a Meta ad URL for attribution. Signal generates and sets both server-side.
First-party cookie: A cookie set on the same domain the user is visiting. Exempt from Safari ITP’s 7-day client-set cookie cap when set via the `Set-Cookie` HTTP response header from a first-party server.
gclid / fbclid / ttclid / li_fat_id: Vendor-specific click-ID URL parameters that identify an ad click (Google, Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn respectively). Captured by Signal’s collector on page load, stored server-side, and attached to subsequent events for attribution.
Ingestion Gateway: The HTTP endpoint that receives events from Datafly.js in the browser. Sets first-party cookies (`_dfid`, `_dfdid`), enforces rate limits and body-size limits, validates event signatures, and publishes to Kafka. Learn more →
ITP (Intelligent Tracking Prevention): Safari’s set of browser-level restrictions that cap client-set cookies at 7 days (24 hours in some cases) and block known tracker domains. Cookies set by a first-party server via `Set-Cookie` headers are exempt and persist for their full TTL.
Kafka: The distributed event-streaming platform Signal uses between the Ingestion Gateway, Event Processor, and Delivery Workers. Provides ordered, durable event flow with at-least-once delivery semantics.
Measurement Protocol: Google’s server-side API for sending events directly to Google Analytics 4. Replaces client-side `gtag.js` calls with server-to-server HTTP requests, improving data completeness and bypassing ad blockers. Learn more →
OIDC (OpenID Connect): An identity-layer protocol on top of OAuth 2.0. Signal uses the OIDC authorization-code flow with PKCE for cross-domain identity propagation between customer sites. Learn more →
Pipeline: A Signal configuration that maps incoming events to one or more outbound destinations with per-field transformations, enrichments, PII handling, and consent rules. Stored as YAML in PostgreSQL; versioned and auditable.
PKCE (Proof Key for Code Exchange): A security extension to OAuth 2.0 / OIDC authorization-code flows that binds each authorization request to a dynamically generated secret. Signal uses PKCE on every cross-domain identity exchange.
Server-set cookie: A cookie written via an HTTP `Set-Cookie` response header, as opposed to `document.cookie` in JavaScript. On a first-party server, server-set cookies are exempt from Safari ITP’s 7-day client-cookie cap.
Server-side tagging: The practice of collecting events in the browser via a first-party collector, then forwarding them from your own server to vendor APIs server-to-server, instead of running each vendor’s tag in the browser. Learn more →
Single-tenant: A deployment architecture where each customer runs its own isolated instance of the platform with its own database, Kafka cluster, and Redis cache. Datafly Signal is single-tenant by design: one Kubernetes namespace per customer. Learn more →
VPC (Virtual Private Cloud): A logically isolated network within a public cloud (AWS, GCP, Azure) under the customer’s control. Datafly Signal’s primary deployment model runs entirely inside the customer’s VPC — Datafly has no access to the data plane. Learn more →