{
  "id": 8813909,
  "title": "First-touch attribution on a cookieless static Nuxt site",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/21/first-touch-attribution-on-a-cookieless-static-nuxt-site",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-09-21T00:51:39.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Dev.to",
    "slug": "dev-to",
    "url": "https://dev.to/dibodev/first-touch-attribution-on-a-cookieless-static-nuxt-site-4f16"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "The author operates a small static Nuxt site that utilizes server-side generation (SSG) and Storyblok, with cookieless analytics in place. This approach ensures privacy but lacks detailed information about the origin of leads. When a user fills out the contact form, the author seeks clarity on the source of each lead, such as whether it originated from Google organic search, a referral from another site, or a specific campaign. Cookieless analytics tools like PostHog in memory mode and Umami provide aggregate referrers but fail to pinpoint the exact source of individual contacts. To address this, the author introduces a first-touch attribution layer that records the initial source of visitor arrival without employing cookies or any external libraries. This method ensures accurate attribution, as it captures the first landing source, not the last one, ensuring that a user who initially came from Google and returned directly is still credited to Google. The implementation details include capturing the first-touch data using localStorage, with safeguards in place to prevent errors in private browsing modes or when storage access is blocked. This approach ensures that the analytics remain functional without compromising the user experience. Upon capturing this data, the author integrates it with the contact form submission, adding the lead source information to the form payload. This data is then processed on the server, converting the source details into a concise label that is appended to the notification email. This method allows the author to track the origin of each lead with precision, providing valuable insights directly correlated with each contact submission, all without relying on cookies or any invasive tracking mechanisms.",
  "summary": "I run a small static Nuxt site (SSG + Storyblok) with cookieless analytics: no consent banner, nothing stored server-side about who visits. Great for privacy, but it left me blind on the one question every freelancer or small business asks: where does each lead actually come from? When someone fills my contact form, I want to know: Google organic? A referral from another site? A specific…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}