Pavel Šabatka

Category: Cookie lišta

  • How to calculate the opt-in rate of cookie bars

    The opt-in rate of the cookie bar shows how many consents I get. A high opt-in rate is good because it means I get a lot of consents.

    If we want to measure it, we need a more precise definition.

    Why you need to know the opt-in rate

    The most important reason is that I need to know how much I can trust the measured data. There is a significant difference between having 30% of data in GA4 and 70%.

    Marketing codes, which are key to the AI algorithms that drive your campaigns, are also linked to the consent given on the cookie bar. The opt-in rate therefore also affects campaign performance.

    If you want to work with the cookie bar and optimize it, you will need to know the opt-in rate.

    Oh, that definition

    However, there is no clear standard definition of opt-in rate. You can find at least 3–4 different definitions online in a matter of moments.

    However, it is always a ratio where the numerator is the number of clicks on “I agree to everything.” What the denominator is is not entirely clear. The number of visits? People? Something else?

    If you use Google Analytics, you might think of the number of sessions. The problem is that if you don’t get consent on the first page, the number of sessions cannot be calculated correctly – you don’t have consent to create cookies.

    You can use the number of people who saw the cookie bar. But here again, you run into the problem of how to determine the number of people when you don’t have consent.

    You can look at the reports offered directly by cookie bar tools. For example, in CookieHub, you can use the number of sessions. Note that this is a completely different metric than sessions in GA4! CookieHub (and other cookie bars) considers a session to be the loading of the script that downloads the cookie bar. This is then stored in the browser for 24 hours, after which it is downloaded again. So you can only do one session per day on the website. Furthermore, it does not distinguish whether a person has already given their consent or not.

    You can use the number of cookie bar views.

    So what should you choose?

    What do I want from the opt-in rate?

    First, you need to clarify what you want from the cookie bar. Typically, it is:

    To get as many people as possible to click “I agree to everything”

    People to click on “I agree to everything” as soon as possible – ideally on the first page. Because if you don’t get consent on the first page, you lose key data for marketing.

    And these two requirements must be described by the opt-in rate.

    How I calculate the opt-in rate

    I ended up calculating the opt-in rate as

    Opt-in rate = count of “consent with all”⁄count of displays

    Examples:

    1. A person clicks “I agree to everything” right on the first page:
      Opt-in rate = 1⁄1 = 100 %
    2. A person ignores banners on the first page and gives his/her consent on the second page:
      Opt-in rate = 1⁄2 = 50 %
    3. There were two people on the website, the first rejected the banner, the second allowed it on the first page.:
      Opt-in rate = 1⁄2 = 50 %
    4. There were two people on the website, both of whom rejected the banner:
      Opt-in rate = 0⁄2 = 0 %

    I use this calculation method because it has two advantages:

    1. The resulting metric meets the requirements—it deteriorates if people do not give their consent. At the same time, it deteriorates if people do not give their consent on the first page.
    2. Measuring the opt-in rate in this way is simple—all you need is the number of clicks and the number of views. You can get both from GA4 connected to BigQuery if you send anonymous pings. A little scripting in GTM is usually enough to set it up.

    At the same time, I don’t use the metrics reported by (otherwise) my favorite CookieHub. Because if you examine its exact definition, the results are misleading.

    What next?

    1. Check that you are measuring the opt-in rate on your website.
    2. Find out what the definition of the opt-in rate you are measuring is (what you are actually measuring).

    And always pay attention to the definition of metrics. Because the opt-in rate rate can be a completely different metric than the opt-in rate rate.

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  • Cookie bars finally in the Czechia

    The Chamber of Deputies has passed an amendment to the Electronic Communications Act. This brings fundamental changes to the use of cookies on websites. Although the law is still awaiting the president’s signature, it is likely to come into force on January 1, 2022. What does this mean and what needs to be done before then?

    What exactly is changing?

    Until now, the Electronic Communications Act has applied the opt-out principle, which means that when a user visits your website, you notify them that you use cookies, but you start using them immediately after they arrive on the website. Typically, this takes the form of a banner stating “This website uses cookies. By using this website, you agree to this practice.”

    Users will now be required to give their explicit consent to the use of cookies, e.g., by clicking on the “I agree” button, etc. Only then can cookies and other similar technologies be used. This is how the idnes.cz server handles consent:

    Notes:

    • The law also applies to similar technologies, such as browser storage, etc. It is therefore not possible to simply replace cookies with another technology that stores data on the user’s computer.
    • The law does not apply to technically necessary cookies, such as those required for logging into a service or saving an e-shop shopping cart.

    What does this mean in practice?

    Cookies are used by many tools on the web. These include, for example:

    • measurement tools –⁠ Google Analytics, Hotjar, Smartlook, etc.,
    • remarketing platforms –⁠ Google Ads, FB pixel, Sklik Remarketing, etc.,
    • conversion codes –⁠ Google Ads, FB pixel, Sklik Remarketing, etc.,
    • affiliate measurement codes –⁠ CJ, AffilBox, etc.,
    • chat tools –⁠ SmartSupp, etc.,
    • videos embedded in websites –⁠ YouTube, Vimeo, etc.,
    • social media buttons for sharing or commenting –⁠ FB like box, etc.,
    • and more.

    All these platforms and tools will need to be modified so that they do not use cookies without users’ consent. If you manage a website or e-shop, you will almost certainly have a lot of work ahead of you.

    However, in addition to the technical adjustments themselves, the change will have other consequences. Some users will not give you their consent to use cookies (and you can assume that this will be more than 50%, which will have further consequences), and some of these consequences can already be predicted:

    • Drastic reduction in the performance of remarketing and RTB campaigns –⁠ you will not be able to target remarketing ads to users who have not given their explicit consent. In practice, this could be half of all users in the best-case scenario. Operators are trying to work around this, e.g., AdFom has introduced the concept of First-Party ID.
    • Inaccurate data in Google Analytics –⁠ even without cookies, you can run Google Analytics code, but users without consent will appear as single-page visits (bounces). Each additional page will be considered a new visit and a new user. It will therefore be quite difficult to evaluate conversion measurements even within sessions, and multifunnel will be almost impossible.
    • The end of campaign evaluation in marketing platform interfaces –⁠ the number of conversions recorded in conversion codes (Google Ads, Sklik, Heureka, Zboží, etc.) will be significantly distorted. Data for campaign optimization will be difficult to use in platforms.
    • Impact on affiliate platforms and their partners –⁠ they use cookies to credit the commission to the partner who brought in the conversion. So, in the best case scenario, partners should lose 50% of credited conversions. We expect them to switch to a different method of crediting conversions, such as using discount codes.

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    The problem with campaign evaluation

    Google Analytics will have a problem with data in terms of how conversions from individual sources will be evaluated. Let’s imagine a situation where a user comes to the website from Google/CPC, browses through four pages, and makes a purchase on the website. This may now look something like this:

    Now (with cookies), we can see in GA where the user came from and how much they spent during that visit. But what will happen during the consent period? Let’s take two examples:

    User does not give consent

    In the same case where we display a cookie bar on the home page to the user, but the user clicks “I do not agree”:

    Google Analytics sends pings to the server, which carry information about whether consent has been given or not. If I don’t receive cookies, the entire session will not appear in Google Analytics.

    The user gives consent on the second page

    Okay, but what happens if the user agrees, but not immediately on the first page?

    In such cases, we still lose information about the original source. Consent must therefore be obtained as soon as possible. If the user does not give consent on the first page, this will have a significant impact on campaign evaluation.

    Google Analytics 4 can partially fill in the gaps in the data—for conversion tracking, it can assign some conversions to their sources based on conversion modeling estimates. Data on visitor behavior (which pages they viewed, website flow, etc.) will be missing. In Universal Analytics, all data will be missing.

    Co je třeba udělat?

    Čeká vás určitě několik základních kroků

    1. Mapování –⁠ je třeba si sepsat, jaké vlastně používáte nástroje a jaké tyto nástroje využívají cookies. Dále je třeba sepsat si interní procesy, které využívají tyto nástroje, a popsat jak se jich úpravy dotknou.
    2. Nasazení nástroje pro sběr souhlasů –⁠ můžete vybrat nějaký z existujících (většinou placených) nástrojů, nebo vytvořit vlastní.
    3. Technická úprava měření a marketingových platforem –⁠ bude třeba upravit spouštění marketingových platforem tak, aby respektovaly souhlas uživatele. Pokud používáte Google Tag Manager, bude to pro vás jednoduší. Pokud ne, doporučujeme s tím začít.
    4. Technická úprava webu –⁠ typicky se jedná a videa vložená na vašem webu, FB a jiná sdílecí tlačítka apod., která vkládají do webu přímo vaši programátoři. Bude třeba, aby to nedělali. A např. místo videa zobrazili statický obrázek, video pak načítali teprve po kliknutí uživatele.
    5. Úprava procesů –⁠ optimalizujete kampaně? Děláte reporty z Google Analytics? Zamyslete se nad tím, jak toto budete dělat nově.
    6. Papírování –⁠ doporučujeme při této příležitosti revidovat, jestli máte uzavřené smlouvy se subjekty, které zpracovávají vaše data (nebo k nim mají přístup).

    What needs to be done?

    There are several basic steps you need to take

    1. Mapping –⁠ you need to write down what tools you actually use and how these tools use cookies. You also need to write down the internal processes that use these tools and describe how the changes will affect them.
    2. Deploying a consent management tool –⁠ you can choose one of the existing (mostly paid) tools or create your own.
    3. Technical modification of measurement and marketing platforms –⁠ you will need to modify the launch of marketing platforms so that they respect user consent. If you use Google Tag Manager, this will be easier for you. If not, we recommend you start doing so.
    4. Technical modification of the website –⁠ typically, this involves videos embedded on your website, Facebook and other sharing buttons, etc., which are embedded directly into the website by your programmers. They will need to stop doing this. For example, instead of a video, they could display a static image and only load the video after the user clicks on it.
    5. Process modification –⁠ do you optimize campaigns? Do you generate reports from Google Analytics? Think about how you will do this in the future.
    6. Paperwork –⁠ we recommend taking this opportunity to review whether you have contracts with entities that process your data (or have access to it).

    Don’t wait!

    The regulation comes into effect on January 1, 2022, and setting up cookie bars is not a matter of a few minutes’ work. It will also take you some time to experiment and test how the data collected in the new way will look and which cookie bar formats bring you the highest opt-in rate. Get started as soon as possible!

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