Cookies went rancid. It’s time for a cookieless tracking batch.
We browse the web everyday and at every new website we land on, privacy and cookies policies can’t wait to be accepted. Surprisingly, only a minority of websites offers the option to decline all cookies (except the necessary ones to display the webpage). Most of the time, the user experience is spoiled because of this legal gate. Of course most of marketers are under pressure to provide numbers, but what if the user doesn’t want to be tracked. Out of numerous consequences for the business, there is a solution.
The consequences of refusing cookies
We all have been there. If your tracking solution is compliant to data protection and privacy regulations, any of your website’s visitors can refuse to be tracked.
For example, your cookie solution is holding all your trackers (Google Analytics, remarketing and others related to personalisation) until your visitor decides to accept or reject some or all of them. As you follow the latest regulations, none of your boxes are ticked and you do not consider legitimate interest as a all-can-fit loophole.
By usage, your visitor will click on OK and won’t be tracked. I mean have you ever read a cookie disclaimer, tick to accept the marketing and statistic cookies? Be honest.
Most of the visitors will click “OK” and will continue their endeavor, letting you down with nothing to analyse.
At the end, you will end up with a few visits that are not reflecting your marketing efforts.
So how to get around this major deception?
After searching the web for hours to find a way to anonymize Google Analytics, which seems to be impossible since it’s collecting user id based on IP addresses, I stumble upon the word cookie less tracking.
What if this simple addition could erase my problem? Can it be possible? I mean tracking visitors without any cookies? They won’t have to accept to be tracked, but they will be in a complete anonymized fashion. What a dream! And I will have real numbers to show on my monthly report!
Briefly how does it work?
Instead of relying on the user, the script you use is triggered when a user is running a webpage, then send the data to the server. The script only records what it’s streamed nothing else. Of course, you get better insights on what the user is doing on your website and where he is coming from. But it can be limited if you are looking for more.
The benefits of cookieless tracking
In any solutions there are benefits when switching to it.
- Accuracy in mobile tracking
Some mobiles have default browsers that shed cookies directly. With cookieless, you have then accurate tracking through all mobiles.
- Privacy
Because it’s server side and it’s not collecting IPs, the script is not collecting any personal information. In addition no cookies are stored on the client side. I mean that the point of a cookieless tracking solution.
- No cookie banner unless…
Therefore you don’t need a cookie banner. Beware that it will be the case only if you use a tracking solution only on your website. If you have any other tool that uses cookies, you need to have a cookie banner. Sorry for that.
- Easy to set up
If you are using a solution such as the Google Tag Manager, a simple tag and 2-line script code is necessary. It has to fire on every pages obviously.
- Measuring conversions works
If you are using a dedicated page to validate a conversion such as a thank-you page, you will be able to measure a conversion. You can also measure an event as a conversion. Practical when you want to measure a click as a conversion.
- Embed, public analytics, or custom domains
I don’t know if it’s because of the simplicity, or the privacy but you can embed a dashboard, or use a custom domain to “embed” your dashboard. It’s kind of having a personalized Google Data Studio and on your own domain.
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Obviously, I recommend to put a password on this custom domain.
Despite all those great features, and because we’ve have been spoiled with Google Analytics for so many years, we may experience a lack of features due to less collected data.
The limitations of cookieless tracking.
- Every single visits is registered
What I like the most in a cookie-based tracking solution is the fact to exclude some IPs or logged users from being tracked. Since no personal information is collected, you can’t exclude any users. It could be a problem if you have a large organisation and many employees who need to consult your website or digital assets for their daily tasks.
- Retargeting is not possible
Since you don’t drop off any cookies on the client’s side, you can’t retarget the user. So you have to think of something else. May be content or other marketing plan that can bring him to the website.
- Basic analytics
Don’t expect to be as complete and refined with a ton of features you’ll never use. In a cookieless solution, we are back to basics.
For example in Plausible, the home page is the main page. You can still have some details on the campaigns you are running.
But nothing much more. No Visitor ID, no custom reports, no multi-channel conversions etc…
Oh, I almost forget. Since it’s based on server hits, you will have to pay by page views. Don’t worry it’s not much, but I said earlier, we were completely spoiled with having Google Analytics for free.
For example with Plausible, here is the basic package.
It will cost 150€/month if you have 10 million pageviews in 30 days.
But that’s it.
What do you think?
Time for not a new batch of cookies
If you are putting data protection compliance first and reporting accurate number just behind, going for a cookieless solution is a perfect solution. In case you need more, you may feel frustrated. Either way, you know now that you can do without having a cookie banner, only if your website is using session cookies and analytics cookies.
Otherwise you will still have to rely on your good old analytics solutions and to gather valuable insights. Unless you have those boxes unticked by default…. as you should.
Well you get my point. Don’t you?
Photo by The Creative Exchange on Unsplash
