Identity capture
Most visitors never reach the checkout, so their visits have no name on them. Identity capture keeps the email, phone number and name a visitor gives you on your store, and attaches them to their visits. You then see who they are in People and on each visit.
What Whence captures
After a visitor allows statistics, Whence keeps:
- the email, phone number, first name and last name they type in a field on your store, even if they never submit the form,
- the same details sent in a form,
- if they also allow marketing, what Klaviyo already knows about them, read from Klaviyo’s cookie on your store.
A phone number typed with a plus sign is kept with its country code; typed without one, it is kept as digits only. A value that does not look like a valid email, phone number or name is dropped rather than guessed.
What Whence never reads
Passwords, card numbers, security codes, bank details, tax numbers and birth dates are never read, nor any field the browser marks as a password or payment field. To exclude another field, add the attribute data-whence-ignore to it (or to a block around it).
Recordings are a separate matter: in the replay, whatever visitors type is hidden in their browser before anything is sent. That setting, Hide what people type, cannot be turned off.
Consent comes first
Identity capture starts only after the visitor allows statistics, and the Klaviyo cookie is read only with marketing consent. A visitor who refuses is never captured. The exception is Record without waiting for consent: with that switch on, Whence captures emails and phone numbers without waiting, while still respecting a visitor who says no.
Turn it off
It is on by default.
Step 1: Open the setting
Go to Settings > Recording & privacy, card Who your visitors are.
Step 2: Switch off Link visits to the people behind them
Then click Save changes. Whence stops capturing from then on. Details already captured are not deleted by this switch; to remove a person, use Access and erasure requests.
Export your contacts
In People, click Export:
- This list (CSV): the people on screen, with your filters and columns,
- All contacts (CSV) or All contacts (Excel): full identity for everyone in the period.
An export holds up to 5,000 people. Beyond that you see “First 5000 people exported. Narrow the dates for the rest.” Exporting contacts needs the Customer data right.
Send captured contacts to Shopify (optional)
Under the same card, Your Shopify customers offers Send captured contacts to Shopify customers. It is off unless you turn it on. When on, a visitor who types their email or phone number after allowing statistics is added to your Shopify customers, tagged whence-captured, with a note saying they came from your storefront.
- Existing customers are never changed, only tagged.
- Nobody is subscribed to your emails or texts.
- Only contacts captured after you turn it on are sent.
- Turning it off stops sending and deletes nothing. Erasing a person in Whence does not delete their Shopify customer.
This needs the Store settings and Customer data rights, and a connected Shopify store.
Whence only reads Klaviyo’s cookie here. To send your store’s events to Klaviyo, connect it as a destination: see Klaviyo.