Pion tracks unique visitors by capturing the existing cookies used by your website or application server. If your cookies are persistent (they do not expire at the end of the session), Pion can also detect and track repeat visits using an embedded cookie database. This database "maps" your website's cookies to unique cookies generated for each visitor by your web analytics provider. In affect, this "hides" the visitor behind a cloak of anonymity without you having to sacrifice the valuable reports for churn, stickiness and retention.

If you do not have cookies available on your website, or if your visitor does not support cookies (or has support disabled), then Pion still tracks the visit by using the IP address and user agent string. This is not as reliable a method as cookies, but when used only as a fallback mechanism (for users who do not support cookies) it can be extremely accurate. Pion also allows you to easily hide the IP address from being sent to your web analytics provider, while still tracking the visit and including it in your reports.