Find out how cookieless analytics work, what the pros and cons are and how to implement it with real examples from cookie consent managers.
What is cookieless analytics?
By default analytics with Extellio uses cookies to store information about the user.
Cookieless analytics uses the visitor's settings and attributes to map which actions belong to each visit, instead of cookies. You can choose to turn off analytics cookies completely, meaning no cookies will ever be set and you could ditch the annoying cookie banner.
Because no cookies are being set, it will affect some of the accuracies in metrics. Extellio can determine unique visitors based on IP addresses and other footprints, but it isn't as accurate when compared to using cookies.
The following reports will not be as accurate: New vs returning visitors, unique visits, days since last visit, visit by visit count, visits to conversion, days to conversion
It also affects the advanced attribution models of goals and conversions, because the referrer is normally stored in a cookie. Without cookies, the conversion will always be attributed to the last visit which is also the default attribution model even with cookies.
... which is why we recommend the "eat the cookie and have it too"-model
It's a hybrid model where you track all users without cookies but still ask for their consent to use cookies. If they decline, you continue tracking them without cookies. If they accept, however, you set cookies.
You will see all visits to your website because of the cookieless tracking, while also collecting correct statistics on unique visits, returning visitors, cohorts and days to conversions etc.
How to turn on cookieless analytics
Go to the Data source you want to turn on cookieless analytics for. You need to do these steps for each source if you have multiple data sources.
Go to "Data source settings" and select "Policy & cookies" in the sidebar menu.
For fully cookieless, disable analytical cookies.
If you want to use cookies when the user has consented, (while still tracking those who didn't consent cookieless) you select "With cookie consent".
If you chose "With cookie consent", you next need to inform Extellio once the consent is given by pushing a snippet of code:
extellio_actions.push(['rememberCookieConsentGiven']);
You also need to inform when the consent is removed:
extellio_actions.push(['forgetCookieConsentGiven']);
If you're using a cookie consent manager
If you're using a cookie consent manager, you typically can use an event listener to know when consent has been given or removed. You can either implement the event listener on each page manually or use a tag manager. We have guides for a few common options.
Implement cookie consent with CookieYes
Implement cookie consent with CookieBot
To track users without cookies before they've consented or if they withdraw their consent, make sure the script loads before cookies are set.