All businesses working with SaaS providers need to hold the technology they use to the highest standards because regulations, guidelines, and best practices are always evolving. This is especially the case in heavily regulated industries and when selling to different markets.
Call intelligence partners have to take these responsibilities seriously and at Infinity we’ve been paying close attention to Google’s Consent Mode v2 to ensure our clients remain compliant with both Google’s guidelines and the European Union’s (EU).
So, what are some of the key things you need to know when adopting Google’s Consent Mode v2 alongside call tracking?
What is Google Consent Mode v2?
Google’s Consent Mode v2 is framework designed to integrate website visitor consent preferences with Google’s advertising and analytics tools. If the website visitor consents, then what Google tracks with its cookies remains the same.
It’s designed to help advertisers comply with the EU’s privacy regulations, particularly the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the ePrivacy Directive. These regulations require obtaining user consent before processing their personal data.
Adding to the existing analytics and ads parameters, Consent Mode V2 includes consent mode parameters “ad_user_data” and “ad_personalisation”, which enable you to better handle consent preferences about your website visitors when it comes to personalized ads and the data that powers them.
Without consent to specific cookies, Google Consent Mode v2 will provide aggregated insights that may be more limited but are still compliant.
What does it mean for you?
Anyone who uses Google tools needs to be aware, especially if you‘re operating in the EEA + UK or targeting residents within the EU. But no two company’s marketing technology stacks and data warehouses are identical, so you’ll need to explore the ways in which it will impact your business specifically.
This will also lead to better privacy for your website’s visitors. You’ll need to work on collecting the consent from them and pass it into the Google systems.
You can choose to include cookies and scripts that are essential to ensure online and offline conversions are properly mapped. This will enable you to understand customer journeys on your website, maintain website performance, and ensure you’re delivering customer experiences that reflect how they want to engage with your brand. For example, many of Infinity’s clients have used this data to understand where and how customers are accessing critical information on their support pages. This in turn enables them to help their customers quicker, on their initial channel of choice.
You’ll need to gather consent for your cookies to send to Google. This can be via methods such as a Content Management System (CMS) or a Consent Management Platform (CMP). Whatever you use, you should:
- Clearly inform users about the use of cookies and their purposes
- Allow users to accept or reject cookies for different purposes
What it means for Infinity?
As a ISO 27001 and PCI DSS Level 1 certified company, that also proactively works with clients to ensure GDPR and HIPAA compliance, we will always welcome better security and data protection measures. This is something we’ve investigated internally and consulted on with external ad-tech experts, along with many other ongoing security updates we’re working on. To that extent, it’s business as usual and Infinity’s Hub itself is not directly impacted, although you will need to think about how you classify call tracking data.
How should you classify call tracking data?
Companies will need to decide what data is ‘strictly necessary’ when gathering consent.
Many of our clients have elected to classify what they gather with Infinity as necessary because it’s enabling them to provide a functional, beneficial experience to their customers. Some reasons and uses include:
- Providing journey consistency for clients requiring support or advice
- Faster solving of crucial support issues due to understanding engagement with FAQ pages
- Connecting vital details about a visitor to ensure they’re better served later in the journey
- Compliance with Ofcom
- There isn’t a more efficient, alternative way to link these engagements using less data
- The insights gathered serve a legitimate interest to both businesses and customers
If these aren’t ways in which you’re currently using call tracking data, but you would like to in the future, get in touch with your customer success manager to learn about how you can achieve this.
Also, we don’t sell any data from either you or your customers, nor do we use your visitors’ data to optimize our own product, and we don’t use third-party cookies.
This data is also useful for marketing analytics, sales funnel insights, and other uses where understanding customer engagement is crucial. If you’re using it for these other purposes, that needs to be communicated when outlining your strictly necessary data gathering.
What do you have to do?
Once you have your chosen means in place to gather consent, Google has detailed support pages on activating Google Consent Mode v2. Here’s their page on the initial set-up.
If you want to ensure you’re able to fully monitor how website traffic flows across the online and offline experience, you’ll need to classify Infinity’s JavaScript as an essential script.
Infinity will be happy to advise you on how to ensure you remain compliant when connecting data to our platform just speak to your CSM or contact our support team.
However, we may not be able to provide comprehensive guidance on other third-party tools and platforms, or what needs to be done elsewhere in your data storage.
Other Best Practices
- Continuous Consent Management: Regularly review and update your consent management practices to remain compliant with evolving privacy laws and regulations.
- Educate Users: Clearly communicate the value and purpose behind data collection, helping users make informed consent decisions. Many improvements to your website and customer experience can be made when you understand how they’re working, the customer benefits from this too.
- Privacy Compliance: Collaborate with legal experts to ensure your data collection practices, both online and offline, comply with applicable privacy laws.
- Consent Banner: Visitors are shown to react better to a succinct, informative banner that is clear but not overly intrusive. If you would like guidance on examples then your CSM will be happy to show some designs that we believe do this well.
- Data Minimisation: Only collect and process the data necessary for your specified purposes, respecting users' privacy preferences.
- Regular Testing: Periodically test the implementation of Google Consent Mode v2 on your website to ensure it accurately reflects user consent choices and functions as intended.
We’re always here to help, so if you have any questions about the new Google Consent Mode v2, feel free to start a conversation with us today!
