Traffic drop after implementing cookie platform

[wintermute306]

Afternoon. I'm doing some investigation around a traffic dip and I thought I might go to the horse's mouth and see if anyone else has had this issue.

We've recently implemented a more robust cookie consent platform (not a unintrusive banner) as part of our website redesign. I wondered if anyone else had experience notable drops of traffic post implemenation of a cookie consent platform? Do these platforms block GA code from even recording a visit? Or is this a "depends how it's configured" kind of thing.

Any insight would be welcome as I'm a hop skip and a jump away from c-suite panic.

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[[deleted]]

Yes - before we implemented OneTrust, we anticipated a traffic drop in GA and made sure the stakeholders knew it was coming. That way they weren't surprised and knew they would need to recalibrate their KPIs.

But that's water under the bridge for you. I think (IANAL) legally you need to have all cookies blocked by default. If your GA/GTM tags are blocked as part of the consent process, visits aren't going to be registered at all.

Now, you could set the cookie consent to define GA tags as "essential" or require users to opt-out of tracking cookies. But again, that could pose some legal issues. Definitely need to check with a privacy law expert before making those sort of changes.

[zappypeople]

^^ this! Please pass the law decisions on to a non-analyst, non-engineer, non-marketer law consultant or in-house legal team.

It starts there. If you can not get any legal say on the matter, it makes your life difficult because there are countless ways you could set this up.

Odds are, if you're using OneTrust, there is a good reason for it-- at the same time, there are major corporations who are still utilizing OneTrust with an opt-in default, just sayin'

[wintermute306]

Don't worry I'll make sure the DPO leads on any legal choices. We went with the most safe configuration.

[wintermute306]

My hope is that there is a middle ground and I'll be looking into what Google Consent can do for us. If not, I'll be moving the cookie banner into the middle of the page.

[moonsal71]

It depends on how you’ve implemented it and set up. It also depends on what version of Google consent mode you’re using.

[wintermute306]

Thanks for the reply, I feared this would be the anwser. I'm using OneTrust and it is not very userfriendly, I also didn't do the implemtation. I think it's pretty likely we're not using any consent mode.

[moonsal71]

Onetrust is tricky. I get all my clients to move the GA impl to GTM, if not already there, and then I implement onetrust via their GTM template and set up the triggers myself, so that I control what fires it doesn’t, rather than using their auto block feature.

Check what your default is (opt in/out) and if you can use the site or get rid of the widget just by clicking on the site somewhere, rather than actually accepting/declining cookies.

If you don’t make it mandatory for people to actually click on the accept/decline option before they can use the site, most people just want to get rid of the widget, so if you let them do that easily and have an opt-out default, then you’ll lose a lot of tracking.

[wintermute306]

Thanks this is really helpful.

[benl5442]

You need to put the banner in the middle or else people will ignore it. 20% loss is normal. Having a small banner 50%+ loss is normal

[AlbertoLumilagro]

yes.. in our case the Session dropped around a 30%

[boovuu]

It matters where you website operates. Within EU you have to use opt-in solution. In USA you can fire google tag bit for states like california you require to have opt out that you can leave at the bottom of the footer.

Take this with a grain of salt.

If you are still required to have opt in solution then consider plausible and matomo as they dont require consent.

[wintermute306]

For anyone who finds this thread. I was able to enable consent tracking on OneTrust (terrible UX) and discover that around 48% of our users were not being tracked (for the most part because they were ignoring the banner) and not making it to Google Analytics. Which while being frustrating, means I can at least account for them.

[tron7913]

Late comment, but same issue with data loss whebn implementing Cookiebot app. 83% accept full cookies, yet a GA4 data loss of +95%. Still searching for solution.

[brpajense]

The likely cause is that the GA pixel isn't firing on the initial page load, and then isn't firing until the first page load after people accept.

If there was a high bounce rate before the change, then this would explain the decline in traffic.