how i track funnels without cookies

Omyaduvanshi, an 18-year-old applied AI developer, has created a cookieless alternative to Google Analytics called Cloudline. The tool requires just one script tag under 2KB, with no cookies or stored IPs. One of its standout features is funnels, which describe analytics data without relying on personal identities.

A funnel shows the number of people who saw a pricing page, clicked a start free button, and then signed up. Traditionally, funnels require tracking individual visitors through each step of the process. However, Cloudline removes the need for this personal tracking, focusing instead on counts of pageviews and button clicks per page.

Cloudline tracks four things per pageview: the page itself, the referrer, screen size, and time. The data is then stacked in a specific order relevant to the user's needs. Funnel tracking does not attempt to guess the path a visitor took, as this would introduce unnecessary complexity. Instead, users explicitly define the steps in their funnels.

The tool allows users to add a single line of data-cloudline-track to any button they want to track. This establishes a connection between the pricing pageview, the start free button click, and the signup pageview. While Cloudline cannot follow individual visitors, the funnel shows the counts for each step, making it clear whether the pricing page is effective or if the next page fails to convert visitors.

Omyaduvanshi uses Cloudline to examine one funnel for each important path on his website, rather than tracking multiple funnels simultaneously. By watching real-time visits, he can quickly determine whether changes to a page have positively or negatively impacted the funnel. The tradeoff for this cookieless approach is the loss of per-visitor journey data, but Omyaduvanshi believes the benefits outweigh this drawback.