About Cookies
Rikke Søndergaard avatar
Written by Rikke Søndergaard
Updated over a week ago

About Cookies

Building an Audience is crucial, and so is making sure that the visitor data you collect is acquired with consent.

The information gathered with cookies can truly enrich Profiles. Make sure to always display a message regarding cookies in your website.


In this Article


Cookie Facts

What are Cookies?

When visitors enter your website, a file is saved into their browser. That file is known as a cookie. In that cookie file, data like their browsing behaviour, items added to cart, etc. can be stored. This, of course, only happens so long the visitors have provided their cookie consent.

What are Cookies For?

In a nutshell: cookies allow websites to recognise visitors based on the data they provided with their consent.

From a page load to the next, no data is saved in the web. Without cookies, it is impossible for visitors to stay logged into a website.

For example, websites issue cookies upon log-in or simple browsing and save them in the browser. When that cookie is sent by the browser back to the website, the website is able to confirm that it is still the same visitor browsing as before.


Types of Cookies

Here are the types of cookies you should know about.

According to Purpose:

Session cookies: expire when the browser is closed. Used by online shops, for example, to allow you to keep items in your shopping cart as you browse the website.

Persistent cookies: commonly used for keeping users or visitors logged in or for recording their browsing activity over a long period of time. In APSIS One, they have an expiration date of anywhere from 7 days to 10 years. How to adjust the cookie lifetime.

According to Origin:

First-party cookies: created by the website the visitor visited, only exist in the domain it was created.

Third-party cookies: these are cookies that are created by third parties (advertisement-related) in different domains. When the same third party has created the same cookie in two different domains and can be associated to the same visitor, the cookie merges and is effective in both domains.


APSIS One's cookies

APSIS One creates cookies with the tracking script, as long as there is cookie consent provided. APSIS One manages first-party cookies, and when Person Detection is turned on APSIS One cookies are created outside your own domain and are regarded as a third party cookie.

Cookies are collected from the moment visitors enter the page, for optimal data collection purposes. These preliminary cookies are not associated with a profile, and neither is a profile created for the cookie until users gives consent. However, if the visitor does not provide consent within a 2-hour period, these are erased.


Cookie Consent

Cookie consent is the informed, explicit agreement of the owner of the cookies (visitor) for their browsing data to be stored and used for clearly stated purposes. A user must be made aware of the cookie purposes at the time consent is requested.

Cookie consent is given by website visitors as they accept the terms in the cookie policy. Usually shown on a website as a cookie banner.


Cookie Banner

A Cookie banner is a container for a message directed towards the website visitors, which contains a cookie policy link and the possibility for visitors to provide their consent if they wish to. The cookie banner should provide the explicit choice of either agreeing to provide or decline consent.


Cookie Policy and GDPR

What is a Cookie Policy?

A cookie policy is a text that explains to your users, in detail, what cookies are active on your website, what data is tracked in them and where, as well as what their purpose is. It should contain information on how visitors can withdraw their cookie consent, or change their preferences if there is an option to change them.

Your cookie policy may be a part of your privacy policy, which is where your methods and purposes of data processing of your website are explained.

Make sure to update both policies periodically.

What is GDPR?

GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation and it regulates the privacy and data protection for all individuals within the European Union and EEA.

Take a look at our GDPR Survival Guide.

Do I Need a Cookie Banner?

Do you have a commercial or marketing website for your brand? Are you tracking cookies for commercial or marketing purposes? Have you not set up a cookie bar yet? Then the answer is absolutely yes!

The Essential Requirements for a Cookie Banner

Your cookie banner must be sincere, transparent, unambiguous, clear, up to date and comprehensive. In other words, your cookie banner should contain a cookie policy link along with an updated message that reflects exactly how the cookies will be handled, as well as the option to both provide and withdraw consent.

Cookie Policy Link

Your cookie banner must contain a link to your cookie policy.

Your cookie policy should be hosted in your website, and visitors should be able to access it comfortably in order to review their preferences and potentially withdraw their consent if they wish to.


What's Next?

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