Reworking the Planet 4 Consent Mechanism: Impact of Google Consent Mode
What a commitment to user privacy means for Planet 4 analytics
Planet 4 is committed to providing a trustworthy, accessible, and intuitive user experience for both editors and users. When users interact with a Planet 4 website, they trust Greenpeace to protect their behavioral data and private information. It is the P4 team’s priority to handle users’ data with the highest privacy standards in mind — something that is continuously evolving in an increasingly digital world.
In Reworking the Planet 4 Consent Mechanism, Julia outlined Planet 4’s journey to protect the privacy of users through a four-part rework of the Planet 4 consent mechanism. This rework must ensure that every Planet 4 website:
- Receive users’ consent before using any cookie (except the strictly necessary first-party cookies, which are cookies considered essential for the use of the platform)
- Allow users to access your service even if they refuse the use of certain cookies.
- Make it as easy for users to withdraw their consent, as it was for them to give their consent in the first place.
- Provide accurate and specific information about the data each cookie tracks and its purpose before consent is given.
- Document and store consent received from users.
An important part of this process was to implement Google Consent Mode on Planet 4 websites. This is a necessary step in order to honor the choices and privacy of our supporters. However, this presents a challenge for web analytics: since users have to explicitly consent before placing any type of cookie, we will lose some ability to track user behavior for analytics purposes.
In order to understand the impact Consent Mode will have on data analytics, we implemented it on the Greenpeace International website and evaluated how the change influenced our analytics data collection.
What is “Consent Mode”?
Google Consent Mode is a simple and effective solution to ensure we are respecting every user’s choice to accept or decline cookies. When enabled, the tool dynamically adapts each tag, ensuring that the tags are only using cookies for a specified purpose after the user gives consent.
When a user lands on a Planet 4 website, Consent Mode behaves as if the user has denied cookies. It isn’t until the user confirms acceptance of cookies that Consent Mode updates the tags to begin to fire. Planet 4 users have the option to accept or deny two types of cookies: Performance and Marketing Cookies.
Performance Cookies (also called Analytics Cookies) are typically used for analysis purposes, like Google Analytics or Hotjar, whereas Marketing Cookies (also called Advertising Cookies) are typically used to track the effectiveness of marketing strategies or to deliver relevant advertisements. A third type of cookie, “First-party” or “Necessary” Cookies, are always enabled as they are technical cookies required for the website to function.
The Impact of Consent Mode on the Planet 4 Analytics
We anticipated that with Consent Mode enabled we will only be able to track approximately one-third of current website traffic. So, we set out to understand what exactly will be different, and if the new sample of data will be enough for us to draw actionable insights for the data & design work streams.
To do this, we identified the key metrics typically used to inform strategic decision-making and compared these key metrics before and after Consent Mode was launched in both three-week (short term) and three-month (medium term) time periods.
Impact on User & Session Tracking
As expected, there was a significant decrease in the number of users and sessions we are able to track in Google Analytics. The total number of trackable sessions decreased by approximately 76%, and the ability to track new users decreased by 88%.
While this is a much larger decrease than we anticipated, there is no need to worry. Our sample size is still more than enough to provide statistical significance.
Tip: A good rule of thumb for a general sample size to support decision-making is 10% of the total population, but if you need a more accurate calculation for a statistically significant sample size, check out SurveyMonkey’s Sample Size Calculator!
Where a significant reduction of the sessions and users tracked may become a challenge is a case where a website has very low traffic. In that case, a minimum sample size generally recommended by statisticians is 100 users. To reach 100 trackable users, you may consider extending the time period data is being collected from, or look to increase website traffic through Social Media or paid advertising campaigns.
Cookies Box Limitations
The percentage of new users who interacted with the cookies box to “Accepted All Cookies” increased dramatically (up to 70%) after Consent Mode was implemented. It is important to note that this measurement is skewed. While a higher percentage of users are interacting with the cookies box, this does not mean more users are consenting to cookies. Remember, we are no longer tracking anyone who has denied consent.
In June 2022, 85.8% of trackable new users used the cookies bar to consent to all cookies. This means that 14.2% interacted in some other way — likely consenting to some cookies, but declining others. This presents 2 limitations: we can no longer track what percentage of users are denying cookies, and we can no longer run accurate A/B tests on the Cookies Box. These challenges shouldn’t pose significant impacts to decision-making but should be kept in mind when making future decisions regarding the Cookies Bar.
Impact on Main Conversion Rates
There are a few key conversion metrics that drive decision-making on most Planet 4 websites. These are metrics that directly contribute to the success of Greenpeace’s mission: Take Action Click Through Rate (CTR), Donate Button CTR, and Petition Signups.
After implementing Consent Mode, we saw an increase in Take Action CTR of 3.29%. Similarly, the Donate Button CTR increased by 0.24%. While this is great news, it cannot be entirely attributed to Consent Mode. There are many contributing factors that would need to be individually analyzed to say for sure what is the cause. For example a change in website design or content, or a specific marketing push. Further research is needed to determine the cause, however, this change is not large enough to significantly impact decision-making surrounding these website features.
On the contrary, a key metric that will be impacted is Petition Signups. Because we are now only tracking those who consented to cookies, Google Analytics will show a significant decrease in petition signups (73% on GPI). This means that Google Analytics is no longer a reliable source of Petition Signups. Moving forward, to calculate Petition Signups you will need to consult your petition software directly.
Impact on Secondary Metrics
Additional metrics of interest when analyzing user behavior on a website include Sessions by Device, Pages per Session, Average Session Duration, and Top Landing Pages.
The decrease in sessions by device is within the expected amount (when compared to the overall decrease in sessions) for all devices, but interestingly our ability to track mobile users was the least impacted. One potential reason for this is that the cookies bar is harder to ignore on mobile devices. The decrease in traffic on landing pages is within the expected amount, and the order of landing page popularity remains exactly the same with Post Pages as the most popular landing page.
There was a very limited increase in Pages per Session and Average Session Duration: Pages per Session increased by 0.19 and Average Session Duration increased by 9 seconds. The increase in session duration may be caused by the addition of text in the cookies box, and having to take the time to make a decision on accepting/denying cookies. However, similar to CTRs, this increase is not necessarily caused by the consent mechanism and is small enough that it should not impact decision-making.
Impact on Third Party Tracking
With Consent Mode activated, the same process applies for third-party cookies such as those placed by other analytical (Hotjar) and digital engagement (Hubspot) tools. Hubspot cookies in Planet 4 are tied to the category “marketing” or “advertising”. That means that Hubspot cookies will only be fired when the user gives full consent or checks this box. If the user denies the Privacy Policy on the Planet 4 site, and then moves to a Hubspot page, the pageviews in Hubspot will still be blocked. This is crucial to remember as it will likely explain any decrease in Hubspot pageviews.
The above applies to Hotjar as well, however, there should be no impact on Hotjar tracking unless overall traffic is extremely low for a particular website. This is because Hotjar already creates reports and projections based on samples, rather than the full audience. Our coverage is 500 sessions/day, so there should be no impact on Hotjar tracking.
Moving Forward with Consent Mode
Despite some impacts to our ability to analyze with Google Analytics and Hubspot, Google Consent Mode should be implemented on all Planet 4 sites.
“Greenpeace should champion the privacy of our supporters above all benefits. At our core, Greenpeace is an activist organization and many of our supporters are activists who care deeply about privacy and security. We should be the leading NGO in privacy, collecting only the data that are critical to our mission with full acknowledgment and consent from our supporters” — Ibrahim Elawadi, Web Analytics 3.0
Supporter privacy and respect for consent must come first, even if it means we lose some analytics capabilities. To get started implementing Consent Mode on your website, view our documentation in Gitbook but first, review some key insights and considerations below.
Key Considerations:
- We may lose the ability to track up to 88% of new users. To mitigate the impacts of this:
- Mark down the date that Consent Mode was launched and look to it conducting long-term analysis
- When comparing website performance before and after implementation, calculate percentages rather than relying on counts
- A/B tests may require longer timelines to obtain the sample size you are aiming for, be sure to factor this time into any testing plans
- Remember: a minimum sample size is 100 users, and you can use SurveyMonkey’s Sample Size Calculator to find the exact sample size required for your website and margin of error requirements
2. Petition Signups and other transactions are no longer trackable via Google Analytics
- Petition Signups (and other transactions such as donations) must be tracked natively in your petition software
Consent Mode is a simple and effective solution to honor the choices of our users, and ensure we are receiving informed consent before any of their private information is collected. But, it’s just one step in Planet 4’s journey to rework the entire consent mechanism, ensuring a trustworthy user experience for all. For more information on this process, check out Reworking the Planet 4 Consent Mechanism, let the team know your suggestions or comments, and stay tuned for updates!
