Introduction
A key part of privacy legislation and regulatory compliance relating to email marketing is getting consent from prospects prior to sending them commercial emails. Under GDPR, for example, the data controller "shall be able to demonstrate that the data subject has consented to processing of his or her personal data."
The GDPR requires that prospects give their consent to store their data and track them. DemandCenter provides a number of compliance tools that allows users to get, store, audit, and respect tracking consent.
Our Tracking Consent features provide a way to:
- Track and retain tracking consent for each prospect with a clear history of consent choices.
- Facilitate a simple banner that pops up asking for consent on a website.
- Understand the context under which consent was given or modified.
- Understand how long DemandCenter should remember tracking consent
How does Tracking Consent work?
When a prospect visits a page that contains eTrigue Tracking code, the prospect can be presented with a banner asking for their consent to be tracked.
The banner will have a consent statement along with accept and decline buttons.
If consent is given... |
If consent is not given... |
Consent "granted" is recorded in prospect's Activity History. |
Consent "revoked" is recorded in prospect's Activity History. |
The "OK to Track" cookie is set to allow eTrigue to know that is tracking is okay for this prospect moving forward. |
The "Do Not Track" cookie is set to prevent eTrigue from tracking this prospect moving forward. |
eTrigue Tracking begins to track the prospect's website activities: pages visited, page stay duration, and assets downloaded |
eTrigue Tracking does not occur. |
When a prospect accepts or declines consent, the activity is recorded.
Within a prospect's activity history, tracking consent is recorded as an activity that happened, similar to a visit.
NOTE: Tracking consent is a device-based occurrence. The icon at the end of the entry represents what type of device (mobile, desktop, etc.) the prospect was using when consent was accepted or declined.
Three Steps to Start Tracking Consent
(1) Verify that your pages contain the standard eTrigue Tracking Script.
To obtain your account's tracking script, click here.
(2) Configure Your Consent Form's Cookies
Go to Settings > Account Settings > Tracking Settings.
Tracking Consent Cookie Expiration
If a prospect has a "OK to Track" cookie, it means that the prospect has granted consent to be tracked. eTrigue will not ask these prospects for consent.
The expiration period defines the life of this cookie. Upon expiration, the prospect becomes eligible to be prompted for tracking consent.
Don't Track Cookie Expiration
If a prospect has a "Do Not Track" cookie, it means Don't Track cookie tells eTrigue to not track a prospect, and not to ask for consent to track.
The expiration period defines the life of this cookie. Upon expiration, the prospect becomes eligible to be prompted for tracking consent.
(3) Configure Your Consent Form's Appearance and Behavior
Go to Settings > Account Settings > Tracking Consent Form.
On this page's left hand side, you will see a preview of how your consent form will appear on a tracked page. On the right side, you will customize how the form looks and how it behaves. For advanced styling of the form, click on the Advanced Styling toggle.
Settings: Display Style
Choose where your consent form appears on page.
- Banner displays at the screen's full width, either at the top or bottom of the screen. Buttons display to the right of text. Banner stays fixed and visible when window is scrolled.
- Dialog displays as a box, horizontally and vertically centered. Buttons display below text and are flushed right. Dialog stays fixed and visible when window is scrolled.
Settings: Banner Position
Choose the position of your banner. This setting applies to Banner display styles.
- Top displays banner at the top of the screen.
- Bottom displays banner at the bottom of the screen.
Settings: Consent Form Background
Choose how your consent form appears in context to the background of the page.
- Dark will use a dark background for the consent form, with light text. If the form is a dialog, a light overlay appears behind the box.
- Light will use a light background for the consent form, with dark text. If the form is a dialog, a dark overlay appears behind the box.
Settings: Tracking Consent Text
Provide the text for your consent form. The tracking consent statement can contain text with basic styling (bold, italic, underline) and links. Some organizations like to include a link to their privacy policy page.
Settings: Button Labels
Choose the labels of your accept and decline buttons. (i.e. The text that appears on the buttons). The labels can a maximum length of 150 characters.
Settings: Audience
This setting controls whom will be presented with the consent form. Consent can be presented to no prospects, all prospects, or prospects from specific countries.
- Don't Ask Anyone means that no one will be asked for consent. Every visitor is tracked and tracking starts immediately when they visit a page.
- Ask Everyone means that everyone that has not already given or denied consent is eligible to be asked for consent. Tracking starts immediately after consent is granted (or the visitor has been determined to have previously given consent).
- Only Ask Visitors From... [specific countries] means that only visitors from specified countries are eligible to be asked for consent. Click Add Countries to choose the countries.
Advanced Styling
Under the Advanced Styling tab, users can override the default styling settings to make the consent form match their specific company branding.
The default CSS is pre-populated to reveal default styling and available selectors. Editing this CSS will update the consent form preview in real time.
For reference: Consent form background and type classes are added to the document <body>
tag.
- etg-light | etg-dark
- etg-dialog
EXAMPLE: Dialog with Light Background
<body class="etg-light etg-dialog">
EXAMPLE: Consent Form HTML Structure
<div id="etg-modal-bg" class="etg-dialogbg"></div>
<div id="etg-consent" class="etg-bottom">
<div id="etg-consent-statement"></div>
<div id="etg-consent-buttons">
<div id="etg-consent-decline"></div>
<div id="etg-consent-accept"></div>
</div>
</div>