How to write a cookie banner text that converts

Blog

Oliver Fich

07/04/2022

Data is hard currency. And you can’t miss out. This post gives you all the tips and tricks for writing a cookie banner text that makes your users accept cookies with many cookie banner examples and designs.

“How can I get more people to accept my cookies?”

That’s the question a lot of people are asking me these weeks.

My advice to all of them is quite simple.

Look at your cookie banner text and design.

And they ask: “What am I looking for?”

I usually show them a range of cookie banner examples that all have high acceptance rates. That is: a consent rate above 90%.

I will show examples to you below.

In this post you’ll learn:

Disclaimer: This is NOT a post about nudging your visitors into consent. I only show you data from best performing banners. All banners shown here are legally compliant with the GDPR.

Writing a good cookie banner text increases the chance of getting consent

Choose the right cookie banner text and you may increase your consent rates by 20 percent.

That’s the pattern we see here at Cookie Information when looking at clients with high performing banners.

So, what is a great cookie banner text?

The banner is often the first piece of content your website visitors read.

It’s important.

Your visitors must make a choice based on the information you provide. A choice about their privacy.

For you, it’s also about getting consents for your analytics and marketing activities.

Here’s what you can do:

Be simple and be transparent.

Don’t overdo it.

Explain plain and simple that you collect data. Inform your users what data that is.

We see best the performances with the headlines like “We use cookies” or “You control your data”.

Besides the headline, the body text is also important.

You are legally required by the GDPR to inform your users of what data your cookies collect.

Be transparent.

Explain plain and simple that you use cookies for the following purposes: statistics, marketing etc.

Again, don’t overdo your cookie banner text. Keep it simple. Like here:

But aren’t you supposed to inform about what data these cookies collect?

Yes. According to most Data Protection Authorities and the GDPR, you should include this information in the first layer (same page) of your cookie banner. But no banner is that big!

What you can do is this:

Use fold-out menus to:

In Sca’s banner fold-out menus are marked with > Functional. Click and expand the cookie banner text.

One cookie banner design outperforms all others

Your cookie banner design is another important variable for obtaining a high number of consents to cookies.

Once again, we have looked at consent rates for top performing banners.

If you use a banner in the bottom of your page, the banners that perform best is the ones with a green “accept” and a grey “reject” button.

Don’t use grey text with a grey button to hide the reject button. That is nudging and that is not legal when collecting valid consents.

We see best performances when the “accept” button is placed left of the “reject” button, like this:

Bottom of page banners run the risk of visitors using your site without interacting with the banner. Then you get no consent and no data.

You can overcome this by using an overlay banner i.e., a design placed in the center of your webpage. The users must interact with the banner before they can use your website.

So, you collect consents for all visitors (except if they reject).

Again, we see that a green “accept” button outperforms other button colors (blue, red, black).

This is not to say that you should not use your brand colors in your cookie banner design.

But keep it simple so it’s easy for your users to recognize.

Small disclaimer: We also have top performing clients with blue, black, yellow “accept” buttons. They have styled and personalized their banner. And they make sure they distinguish between the accept and the reject button. They don’t nudge by hiding the “reject” button, they don’t make it hard for users to decline cookies.

What must be included in a cookie banner for it to be GDPR compliant?

A lot of European cookie banners are not GDPR compliant.

Why?

Because they do not follow the rules for consent in the GDPR.

Here’s what to remember when you want to use cookies and comply with the GDPR.

For consent to be valid, you must include the following in your cookie banner:

The 7 steps for collecting valid consent to cookies:

Include a cookie banner text that informs your users of cookies; what data they collect; for what purpose; by whom and for how long.
Place a reject button next to the accept button – consent has to be just as easy to reject as it is to give.
Collect consent by purpose – use checkboxes in your banner, so your visitor can select between different cookie categories (marketing, statistics etc.).
Don’t use pre-ticked checkboxes for cookie categories. This was rules illegal by the European Court of Justice in 2019.
Make it easy for your visitor to change or withdraw consent to cookies. Use a small icon in the bottom of your page that reopens your cookie pop-up.
Get consent before your website sets/reads cookies. You can do that with pre-build scripts or automations in your CMP.
Store all your users consents for 5 years… just in case the Data Protection Authorities want to see them.

Cookie banner examples in our platform

Now, here are different ways you can place your cookie banner on your website.

If you want to look at our cookie banner examples in our platform and how it may look on your website, use our template tool.

Select your template. Click “accept” or “reject” in the banner. Enter your website URL and grab screen shot.

Now you can see an example of how the banner looks on your website.

We have a range of banners in our collection.

Standard cookie banner

The standard cookie banner is a banner type that is placed in the bottom of your page. Like this:

The overlay v3 cookie banner

The overlay v3 cookie banner is placed “on top” of your webpage.

Your users must give or don’t give consent before they can continue to your site.

The sidebar banner

You can also choose to get a sidebar banner on your website.

The CCPA banner

Cookie Information also caters to the American market, if you operate in the USA and especially California with its strict privacy law called CCPA (Californian Consumer Privacy Act).

Although the rules for consent are slightly different, it’s still important to collect consent for using tracking cookies.

Why you should get a GDPR compliant cookie banner from Cookie Information

We all know it. Data is crucial for our marketing efforts. No data, no insights, no target advertising. And thereby less conversions from campaigns, less sales on your website.

Collecting data is something we take seriously.

In the era of the GDPR, cookie banners have become a central part of any website.

Cookie banners inform users of cookies and enable them to make choices regarding their personal data and privacy

But what keeps your website legally compliant with the GDPR, is also what can potentially make you lose data.

Be compliant without losing all your data

Because when users have the option to say ‘no thanks’ to cookies, some will do just that.

This means that cookies – and behavioral data – are not sent to Google Analytics (or whatever analytics software or CRM you use). And you lose insights.

But there are steps to take to minimize data loss while being GDPR compliant.

With Google Consent Mode – which is built into our solution – you can get aggregated traffic and conversion data for Analytics and Ads for all those who decline your cookies.

Sounds good?

Then get started with a 30-day free trial today!