Sailthru

Overview

Sailthru (now part of Marigold) is a cross-channel marketing automation platform specializing in personalized email, web content recommendations, and behavioral targeting for media, publishing, and e-commerce companies. The platform's web-facing component deploys tracking scripts that capture detailed visitor behavior to power personalized content recommendations, email triggers, and audience segmentation based on individual browsing patterns and content preferences.

What This Script Does

Sailthru deploys a behavioral tracking script and personalization engine on websites.

• Scripts loaded: The Sailthru JavaScript library loads from ak.sail-horizon.com, initializing behavioral tracking and content personalization on the page
• Behavioral tracking: The script records page views, article reads, product views, scroll depth, time on page, and content category consumption. This data builds individual user interest profiles that power Sailthru's recommendation algorithms.
• Cookies set:
  • sailthru_hid — First-party cookie. Sailthru's unique visitor identifier linking browsing behavior to a Sailthru user profile.
  • sailthru_visitor — First-party cookie. Stores visitor attributes and interest profile data for client-side personalization.
• Content recommendations: Sailthru's Concierge feature renders personalized content recommendation widgets on the page, showing articles, products, or offers tailored to the individual visitor's behavioral profile.
• Email triggers: Browsing behavior triggers automated email campaigns — browse abandonment emails, content digest emails based on reading interests, and re-engagement campaigns for inactive visitors.
• Data collected: Page URLs, content categories, product IDs, read/view duration, scroll depth, referrer, search terms, and visitor identifiers. This data feeds Sailthru's interest graph, which models each visitor's content and product preferences.

Consent & Compliance

Sailthru falls under both analytics and marketing consent categories.

Under GDPR and ePrivacy, Sailthru's tracking script requires explicit consent. The sailthru_hid cookie is a persistent identifier used for behavioral profiling and marketing automation. The combination of behavioral tracking, individual interest profiling, and automated email triggers constitutes personal data processing for direct marketing under GDPR. The ePrivacy Directive requires consent for the non-essential tracking cookies.

Under CCPA/CPRA, the behavioral profiling, interest graph construction, and automated marketing communications constitute processing of personal information for advertising purposes.

Should You Block This Without Consent?

Yes. Sailthru's tracking script sets persistent identification cookies, profiles individual visitor behavior, powers personalized content recommendations, and triggers automated marketing emails. Block the script until the user grants consent for analytics and marketing.