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Visitor Markers & Avatars

Understand the visitor markers on your 3D Globe - DiceBear avatars, location placement, value-based sizing, and detail cards.

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Last updated: January 15, 2025

Each marker on your 3D Globe represents a visitor to your website. Learn how markers are placed, what their appearance means, and how to interact with them.

Anatomy of a Marker

DiceBear Avatars

Every visitor marker displays a unique DiceBear Open Peeps avatar:

  • Consistent identity: The same visitor ID always generates the same avatar
  • Circular design: Avatars are rendered as circular badges on the globe
  • Transparent background: Avatars blend naturally with the globe surface

Marker Sizing

Marker size is determined by the visitor's value score (0-100):

Value ScoreMarker SizeDescription
030pxMinimum size for new/low-value visitors
5045pxMid-range visitors
10060pxMaximum size for highest-value visitors

High-value visitors (score 80+) may also receive avatar accessories like glasses, making them visually distinct.

Location Placement

How Location Is Determined

Markers are placed based on IP geolocation with multiple fallback strategies:

  1. City-level coordinates: When latitude and longitude are available from the visitor record, the marker is placed at that location
  2. Geocoded city: If coordinates seem unreliable (more than 6,000 km from the country center), the globe uses Mapbox geocoding to look up the visitor's city
  3. Country center: If no city data is available or geocoding fails, the marker falls back to the center of the visitor's country

Geocoding Cache

City coordinates are cached so that repeated lookups for the same city are instant. This means the first visitor from a new city may briefly appear at the country center before the geocoded location is resolved.

Location Accuracy

LevelAccuracy
CountryVery accurate (99%+)
Region/StateUsually accurate (90%+)
CityOften accurate (70-80%)
Exact addressNever shown (privacy)

Why Locations May Vary

Some factors affect accuracy:

  • VPN usage by visitors
  • Mobile network routing
  • Corporate proxies
  • ISP data quality

Location is always approximate. Zenovay never tracks exact addresses to protect visitor privacy.

Marker Lifetime

Active Window

The globe displays visitors from a rolling 2-minute window:

  • When a visitor loads a page, a marker appears
  • Markers remain visible for up to 2 minutes
  • After 2 minutes, markers are removed automatically
  • Up to 50 markers are shown simultaneously

New Visitor Behavior

When a new visitor arrives:

  1. The visitor's marker appears on the globe
  2. The Activity Feed updates to show the new visitor
  3. The Top Stats overlay refreshes with updated counts

Deduplication

If the same visitor (same session) loads multiple pages, only the most recent entry is kept rather than showing duplicate markers.

Visitor Detail Cards

Viewing Details

Click any visitor marker on the globe to open a detail card. The card shows session information for that visitor.

What the Detail Card Shows

The visitor detail card includes:

FieldDescription
DiceBear avatarThe visitor's unique generated avatar
UsernameAn anonymized identifier (e.g., "User1a2b****")
Country and cityGeographic location with country flag
Page viewedThe URL the visitor is viewing
Device infoBrowser, OS, and device type
Referral sourceHow the visitor arrived at your site
Session durationTime since the visitor arrived
Pages viewedNumber of pages in the session
Conversion likelihoodEstimated conversion potential based on behavior

Closing Detail Cards

  • Click another marker to switch to a different visitor
  • Click empty space on the globe to close the card
  • The detail card also closes when opening the Share modal

Activity Feed Interaction

Flying to Visitors

Click any visitor in the Activity Feed panel to fly the globe to their location:

  1. The globe smoothly animates to center on the visitor
  2. Zoom level adjusts based on data precision:
    • City-level coordinates: zooms to city level (zoom 8)
    • Country-only data: zooms to country level (zoom 5)
  3. The visitor's detail card opens automatically

Feed Filtering

You can filter the activity feed by clicking on stats in the Top Stats overlay:

Filter TypeHow to Apply
CountryClick a country in the stats breakdown
DeviceClick a device type in the stats
ReferrerClick a referral source in the stats

Click the filter again or refresh to clear it.

Performance with Many Visitors

Marker Limits

The globe displays up to 50 active markers at a time. When traffic is high:

  • The most recent visitors are prioritized
  • Older markers are removed to make room for new ones
  • The visitor count in the stats overlay remains accurate even if not all visitors are shown as markers

Smooth Visualization

For the best experience with active sites:

  • Keep the browser tab in the foreground
  • Close unnecessary tabs to free resources
  • Enable hardware acceleration in your browser

Next Steps

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