The cookie bar

Switch it on and ClickWhale asks every visitor what they'll allow, then holds back everything they didn't: your analytics, your marketing tags, embedded videos and maps. You don't have to wire any of that up; the switch does it.

The bar changes what loads. With it on, a visitor who accepts nothing gets a site with no analytics, no tags and no YouTube, so your visitor numbers will drop the day you switch it on.

Switching it on

1. Manage → Settings → Website settings.
2. Set Cookie bar privacy policy page to your privacy page, so the dialog can link to it.
3. Tick Enable cookie bar.
4. Save, then publish. Like every setting, it isn't live until you do.

The four categories

What the visitor sees

A dialog with a short explanation, a link to your privacy page, and the four categories as checkboxes.

• Accept all and Reject all are shown while nothing extra is ticked.
• Tick any category and those two buttons are replaced by Save settings, so the visitor either makes a blanket choice or a precise one, never both at once.
• Pressing Escape counts as rejecting everything.

The dialog can be reached again at any time: a small cookie button stays in the corner of the site, and any link or button on your pages carrying data-cw-open-consent reopens it too. Handy for a "Cookie settings" link in your footer.

The wording of the dialog comes from ClickWhale in the language of the site the visitor is on. It isn't editable in the builder. What you control is the privacy page it links to.

What gets held back, automatically

You don't tag anything yourself. Once the bar is on:

One exception: Plausible is not held back. It sets nothing on the visitor's device and counts nobody personally, so it needs no consent, and it keeps measuring the visitors who refuse everything else. If you want numbers that survive the cookie bar, that's the integration to use.

Two consequences:

• Google Consent Mode signals are sent on every page load, denied by default and updated the moment a visitor accepts. Google therefore sees something from every visit, and your reporting degrades gracefully rather than going dark.
• Anything filed under General in your site-wide custom code always loads. That's the right place for styling and cookie-free scripts, and the wrong place for anything that identifies a visitor.

When a decision takes effect

Granting is immediate: accept analytics and the tag loads on the page you're on.

Withdrawing takes effect on the next page load. A script that has already run can't be un-run. What ClickWhale does at that moment is stop it loading again and delete the first-party cookies it can reach. If you're testing this, reload after changing your mind.

The choice is stored on the visitor's own device, not on your website, and it's remembered for a year. After that they're asked again. It's per browser and per device, so the same person on a phone and a laptop decides twice, and clearing browser data resets it.

If you leave the bar off

Everything loads for everyone and nobody is asked. That's fine for a site with no analytics, no tags, no embedded video and no maps, and not fine for any other site, in Europe at least.

Common issues