What Website Privacy does
Website Privacy makes Triggerbee follow each visitor's privacy choice. You decide what happens for visitors who accept, visitors who decline and visitors who have not answered your cookie banner yet.
You find it in your account settings, under Website Privacy. The page has three parts:
Tracking: whether visitors are tracked with cookies or without them, and what happens to the forms they fill in.
Onsite Experiences: whether your experiences are shown, and whether something a visitor closed stays closed on their next visit.
When a visitor answers: what happens the moment a visitor accepts or declines.
Most settings offer Yes, No or Only when…. Only when… lets you name the condition that means a visitor has accepted, usually a cookie your cookie banner sets.
Before you start
To use Only when…, Triggerbee needs to read the visitor's answer from your cookie banner. There are two ways to describe it:
Condition type | What you enter | Example |
Cookie | The cookie's name, how it should match (equals, contains or exists) and the value |
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JavaScript expression | An expression that is true when the visitor has accepted |
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A JavaScript expression is checked on every page load. Only a true result counts as accepted. An error, or a cookie banner that has not loaded yet, counts as not accepted.
Also let your cookie banner tell Triggerbee when the visitor answers. Without this, a new answer only takes effect on the visitor's next page. Call this from the code that runs when the visitor saves their choice:
if (window.triggerbee && typeof window.triggerbee.refreshPrivacy === "function") { window.triggerbee.refreshPrivacy(); }
Visitors with cookies
This is the main tracking setting: whether Triggerbee tracks visitors the usual way, with every feature that relies on cookies.
Option | What happens |
Yes | Every visitor is tracked the usual way. Use this when your site does not ask visitors for consent. |
No | Visitors are not tracked. Forms they fill in still go where you choose under Form submissions. |
Only when… | Visitors are tracked the usual way once they match your condition, for example once they accept analytics cookies. Until then, they are only tracked as far as your other settings allow. |
With Only when…, the two settings below decide what happens before a visitor accepts: whether they are counted without cookies, and where their form submissions go.
Visitors without cookies
This setting counts visitors who have not accepted, whether they declined or have not answered yet. It is available when Visitors with cookies is set to Only when….
A visitor counted without cookies:
has their visits, page views, goals and purchases counted
gets nothing saved on their device
cannot be recognised when they come back, so they count as a new visitor each day
carries on as a normal visitor once they accept, with the pages they saw so far in the same visit
Option | What happens |
Yes | Visitors who have not accepted are tracked without cookies. |
No | Visits are not counted until a visitor accepts. Forms they fill in still go where you choose. |
Only when… | Visitors who have not accepted are tracked without cookies only while they match your condition. |
Form submissions
Filling in a form is something a visitor chooses to do, so their submissions still reach you even if they have not accepted. This setting decides what Triggerbee keeps from them. It applies to every visitor who has not accepted, counted without cookies or not.
Option | What happens |
Store in form responses and send to integrations | The submission is saved in your form responses and sent to your integrations and automations, as for any visitor. |
Send to integrations only | The submission is counted for its form and sent to your integrations and automations. Triggerbee keeps nothing they typed and builds no profile from it. |
The setting is greyed out when Visitors with cookies is set to Yes, because then every visitor is tracked as usual.
Onsite Experiences
Show experiences
This setting allows your onsite experiences to be shown. Turning it on does not make anything appear by itself: each experience's own targeting still decides who sees it and when.
Option | What happens |
Yes | Experiences can be shown to every visitor. |
No | No experiences are shown. |
Only when… | Until a visitor matches your condition, no experiences are shown to them. |
Remember across visits
This setting remembers experiences a visitor has closed or completed, so they stay closed when the visitor comes back. It is greyed out when Show experiences is set to No.
Option | What happens |
Yes | What a visitor closed stays closed on their next visits. |
No | It is remembered for the rest of the visit, so something they closed stays closed while they browse. Nothing is kept once they leave. |
Only when… | Until a visitor matches your condition, what they close is only remembered for the rest of that visit. |
When a visitor answers
These options decide what happens the moment a visitor accepts or declines. They need two things: a setting above set to Only when…, and a cookie banner that tells Triggerbee when the visitor answers (see Before you start). Without either, a visitor's answer changes nothing until their next page.
All three are on for a new account.
Option | What it does |
Re-check onsite experiences | When a visitor accepts, an experience they have just allowed can appear straight away rather than on their next page. Each experience's own targeting still decides whether it does. |
Close onsite experiences when a visitor declines | Closes any onsite experience that is open when a visitor declines. Switch this off if a visitor could be part-way through a form and would lose what they typed. |
Update what is saved on the visitor's device | If a visitor declines, Triggerbee removes what it has saved on their device, or makes it expire sooner. If they accept, it is kept for its full time again. |
Example setups
Three common ways to set up the page. The examples assume a cookie banner that saves the visitor's choice in a cookie_consent cookie, listing the categories they accepted, such as necessary,analytics,marketing.
Setting | Count everyone, track fully after consent | Nothing before consent | No consent needed |
Visitors with cookies | Only when… | Only when… | Yes |
Visitors without cookies | Yes | No | (not used) |
Form submissions | Store in form responses and send to integrations | Send to integrations only | (not used) |
Show experiences | Yes | Only when… | Yes |
Remember across visits | Only when… | Only when… | Yes |
When a visitor answers | All three on | All three on | (not used) |
Which setup is right for you depends on your privacy policy and the laws where your visitors are. Check with whoever is responsible for privacy at your company.
Good to know
When does a visit without cookies show up in Visits? Once the visit has ended, a few minutes after the visitor's last page. Visits with cookies show up while they are still going on.
What happens when a visitor accepts part-way through a visit? The pages they saw before accepting become part of the visit they continue with cookies, so you see one visit, not two. This works when they accept within a few minutes of their last page.
Can two people be counted as one visitor? Yes, sometimes. A visitor without cookies is recognised only by their network and browser for that day, so two people on the same network with the same browser can share one visit.
What is not available for visitors without cookies? They are not recognised on later days, no profile is built for them, and A/B tests are not supported for them.
How do I test my setup? Open your site in a private browser window, decline in your cookie banner and browse a few pages. Then accept and browse a little more. After a few minutes, the visit shows up in Visits as one visit.
I changed the categories in my cookie banner. Update the condition on this page so it still matches the cookie your banner sets.
Open question: are NPS and CSAT answers from visitors without cookies counted? Today they are not; this is still to be decided.