Introduction¶

This document gives instructions on how to set up the Cookieless Tracking feature.

The Statistics module normally applies a cookie to the browser of the visitor. It is possible to remove this, and still allow us track the same data from visitors who refuse statistics cookies on the cookie banner.

The data tracked includes browsing behavior, geographical location, device information, and more.

How it works¶

To gather the same data without a cookie, we rely on other pieces of information such as operating system, browser, browser plugins, user IP address, and browser language to assign a unique ID to each visitor in our systems.

The unique ID is only valid for 24 hours and visitor IP addresses are made fully anonymous until they are deleted.

This makes the solution privacy-friendly and prohibits fingerprinting.

Advantages¶

• Practical: When users refuse statistical cookies via the cookie banner, Acquia Optimize can still gain valuable information without placing a cookie on their browser.
• Symbolic: Show your audience that you care about their privacy.
• Privacy: Visitors can rest assured that no unwanted files (cookies) are placed on their browser.
• Legal: While not prohibited yet, cookies are becoming more and more unpopular as a tracking mechanism. In 2019, Google launched the Privacy Sandbox initiative, which aims to create a standard for websites to access user information without compromising the privacy of their visitors. Part of that initiative involves a move away from third-party cookies to gather data.

Disadvantages¶

There are few to no disadvantages with Cookieless Tracking.

• Returning visitors: Since the unique visitor ID that Cookieless Tracking is based on expires after 24 hours, it makes it hard to track returning visitors and build visitor profiles over time. However, our Statistics feature does not provide visitor profiling. You can expect the same quality of visitor data without a cookie.

Instructions¶

This section gives instructions on how to set up Cookieless Tracking on your website.

Instructions for new users¶

1. Click Admin Settings (gear icon) on the main toolbar from any page.

   Note

   The Settings button is only available to site admins.

   

   The Domain Settings page opens.

   

2. On the same row as a domain, click Action.

   

   The Action menu expands.

3. In the drop-down list, select Script Setup Guide.

   

   The Set up your Domain page opens.

4. Click Enable Statistics to turn it on.

   

5. Click to turn on Enable Cookieless Tracking.

   
6. Click Save at the bottom of the page.

7. Copy the script and add it to the HTML code of the website. In the HTML editor, paste the script into the HEAD tag or place it before the </body> tag on every page.

   Note

   If Consent Manager is activated, the script must be in the HEAD tag in order to catch the cookies.

   For more information, see the user guide article:
   ​Add the Script.

Existing Statistics users¶

Existing users of our Statistics feature can switch to Cookieless Tracking at any time. Follow the steps above to create a new script to publish.

When cookieless tracking is enabled, the analytics data merges seamlessly with your existing dataset to avoid the problem of two separate datasets (one for cookie-based tracking and one for cookieless).

Advanced setup¶

To set up Cookieless Tracking manually, see the instructions in:

• Acquia Optimize for Developers
  • Cookieless Tracking.

Additional resources¶

For more information on the topics covered in this article, see:

Cookieless tracking user guide.

Acquia Optimize for Developers advanced help for developers.