Ad blocker/Do Not Track can result in inaccurate statistics

Are you seeing low statistics or not seeing any numbers at all? 

First, check if your date range has been set correctly. Sometimes you may be looking on a Sunday when there is no activity.

Otherwise, it may be either an "Ad blocker" plugin or a "Do Not Track" feature enabled on your/your user's machine. Turning these features off has resolved these tracking problems for most clients.

Here's a breakdown of how Ad blockers and Do Not Track (DNT) work:

Ad blockers: 

A software that users install to avoid ads cluttering a page or having their data sent back by third parties. They are available as desktop browser extensions or standalone apps for mobile devices. 

Do Not Track (DNT): 

Works in a similar way to Ad blockers. Do Not Track is a technology that provides users with a simple and persistent choice to opt out of being tracked by websites and platforms they visit. All of the most popular modern browsers support this function, but users have to activate it manually. The exception is MS Edge where this feature comes enabled by default. Other browsers are planning on enabling it by default soon as well.

How do you know if you have either one of these features? 

In order to check this, you can do the following steps:

1. Open a browser window and login to your ThoughtFarmer site. 
2. Open the developer console - for Chrome, FireFox, Edge and Safari, you can do this by pressing F12, or going to the browser settings.
3. On the developer console, click the network tab and see if there is a request made to https://analytics.thoughtfarmer.com.
   1. If the request has 200 status code, it means the tracking request is successful - meaning you are being tracked properly on ThoughtFarmer Analytics.
   2. If you see an error code (ie. 40x or 50x) this means there may be an issue with ThoughtFarmer Analytics, in which case you should contact the helpdesk so we can look into it.
   3. If your browser uses an Ad blocker or has the DNT feature enabled, then you will not see a tracking request at all. 

Example of what it should look like if you do NOT have Ad blocker or DNT enabled:

If the user does not have Ad blocker or DNT enabled, and there is still no tracking request shown on Network tab, there may be another cause for the lack of statistics. We recommend checking if ThoughtFarmer Analytics is enabled in the Admin Panel (Admin Panel > ThoughtFarmer Analytics)

It should look like this:

If ThoughtFarmer Analytics is enabled there may be something else within your environment that's blocking the tracking requests. Please reach out to us at the helpdesk and we can help you look into it.

How to enable/disable DNT for widely used browsers

• Google Chrome:  
  • More ( ) Settings > Privacy and security > Cookies and other site data > turn Send a "Do Not Track" request with your browsing traffic on or off.
     
• Mozilla FF:  
  • Menu ( ) > Options > Privacy & Security > Browser Privacy > Enhanced Tracking Protection > Send websites a “Do Not Track” signal that you don’t want to be tracked > Only when Firefox is set to block known trackers to turn off | Always to turn on
     
• MS Edge:  
  • Settings and more  > Settings  > Privacy and services  > Privacy > Send Do Not Track Request (toggle to switch on/off)
     
• Safari: 
  • Preferences > Advanced > Security > “Ask websites not to track me.” (toggle to switch on/off) - This feature will be removed by Apple starting Safari 12.1.

Please remember that DNT is already on if you use your browser in incognito or private browsers:

• MS Edge : InPrivate Window
• FireFox: Private Window 
• Chrome: Incognito Window

We don't have specific instructions on how to disable Ad blockers since there are many third party Ad blockers available. We recommend you contact your IT team to assist with disabling that for your users.