Questions and answers

The banner

The banner does not show. What do I check?

1. Check that you published the site. Until the first publish the script shows nothing.
2. You may have chosen already. Then the button to reopen is on the page, not the banner. Open the site in a private window.
3. Check whether the banner shows in chosen countries only, and you are outside them. See Regions and privacy signals.
4. View the page source and search for cdn.cookiemark.com. If it is missing, a page cache probably serves a copy from before you added the line. Clear the caches of your site, your host and your CDN.
5. Your browser may send Global Privacy Control. Cookiemark then refuses on your behalf and shows no banner.

The banner shows late, after a click or a scroll.

An optimisation tool is delaying the script. Exclude it from delay, defer and combine, as described in Install the script.

How do I ask every visitor again?

Open the site's Settings, press Ask everyone again, and publish. Every stored choice from before is ignored from then on, and the old choices stay in the log. Do this when you add a service that needs consent.

How long is a choice remembered?

Six months unless you change it under Regions, Ask again after. You can choose 6, 12 or 13 months. Safari is the exception: it keeps the choice for seven days, unless your server sets the cookie. See Safari and the seven-day limit.

Can a visitor change their mind?

Yes, on every page. The small button in the corner opens the preferences. You can also add a link to #cookiemark-preferences to your footer or cookie policy.

Can I hide the reject button, or make it less visible?

You cannot remove it. By default the reject button looks the same as the accept button, because regulators expect both choices to be equally easy to see. You can switch that off under Design, Buttons. Read the note on the law below before you do.

Can I show the banner as a cookie wall?

No. The dialog layout dims the page and keeps keyboard focus inside the banner. But it always offers a reject button, and your site works after a refusal.

Which languages does the banner come in?

The banner, the preferences and the cookie declaration come in 48 languages, with standard texts in each. You set nothing up for that. Every text is yours to change on the Texts tab, and a change applies to the language you edit only. Arabic and Hebrew are shown right to left.

How does the banner choose its language?

For each visitor the script goes through this list and takes the first language the banner has:

1. A data-lang attribute on the script tag, such as data-lang="de". A site in several languages can set it per page.
2. The language you chose under Always one language on the Texts tab.
3. The visitor's languages. By default the languages set in their browser come first and the lang attribute of your page second. Choose Follow the language of the page to turn that round.
4. The fallback language, English unless you choose another.

Regional variants count as their language: de-AT shows German, pt-BR Brazilian Portuguese and zh-HK traditional Chinese.

The banner is in the wrong language.

Check the list above. The browser comes first by default, so a visitor whose browser is set to English sees English on a Dutch page. Choose Follow the language of the page on the Texts tab if your page language should win, and check that your pages have the right lang attribute.

Does a language cost an extra request?

The fallback language, a language you always show and every language you edited are part of your script, so the banner shows at once. For other languages the script fetches the texts from the same address as the script, which browsers and our CDN keep for a long time. Blocking and Google Consent Mode never wait for them. If the texts take longer than a second and a half, the banner shows in the fallback language.

Does the banner load fonts from Google?

No. When you pick a web font for the banner, it comes from Bunny Fonts, which serves it from the EU without cookies or logging. You can also use the font of your own site.

A chat button sits on top of the banner.

While the banner or the preferences window is open, Cookiemark moves floating elements such as chat buttons below it. Open menus stay on top, so visitors can still navigate. You switch this off under Settings, Keep the banner on top.

Does one choice count for several domains?

Across subdomains of one domain, yes: enter the main domain under Settings, Share the choice across subdomains. Separate domains each ask on their own.

Google and tags

Do I need Google Tag Manager?

No. Cookiemark sets Google's consent signals itself and holds back the trackers it recognises. Tag Manager is only needed for the tags you manage in it.

Do my Google tags need consent settings in Tag Manager?

No. Google's own tags read the consent state themselves. Tags from other vendors need a consent trigger, as described in Google Tag Manager.

Should I use basic or advanced Consent Mode?

Basic sends nothing to Google before consent, which is what most European regulators expect. Advanced sends pings without cookies, which Google uses to model missed conversions. Google Consent Mode v2 compares the two.

A script I need is blocked by mistake.

Find the service under Cookies, Services and switch it off. If it is one of your own rules, remove the rule. Only let a script load without consent when it sets no cookies and collects nothing.

Does Cookiemark support IAB TCF?

Not yet. Sites that show Google AdSense, Ad Manager or AdMob ads to visitors in Europe need a consent tool certified for TCF. Cookiemark is not certified, so it is not the right tool for those sites today.

Moving from Cookiebot

Will my Cookiebot markup keep working?

Yes. Scripts and frames marked with data-cookieconsent wait for consent as before. See Blocking scripts and embeds.

Will my Tag Manager container keep working?

Mostly. Switch on Also send Cookiebot event names and check your triggers in Tag Manager's preview. Google Tag Manager lists what to check.

My theme asks Cookiebot.consent.marketing.

Switch on Answer to the Cookiebot JavaScript API on the Google and GTM tab, and remove the Cookiebot script. The JavaScript API lists what it answers.

Can I run both for a while?

No. Two consent tools on one page fight over the same scripts, and visitors see two banners. Swap one for the other in one step.

Plans and sites

What happens when my site gets many more visitors?

Nothing changes on your site. The price follows the number of sites, not visitors, and the banner never stops because of a limit. If one site grows far beyond what its plan was meant for, we talk to you first.

What happens when my plan is full?

You cannot add another site until you move to a bigger plan or archive one. Every banner that is already live keeps working.

Is there a WordPress plugin?

Yes. It adds the script at the top of the head, keeps optimisation plugins away from it, sets the consent cookie from your server for Safari, and passes the choice on to the WP Consent API. You download it from the Install tab. See Install the script.

Data and privacy

What does Cookiemark store about my visitors?

For each choice, the consent log stores a random consent ID, the choice, the time and the page path. It also stores the browser, the language, the country and a shortened IP address. It stores no names, email addresses or full IP addresses. The consent log has the detail.

Where is the data stored?

The choice itself lives in a cookie on your own domain. The consent log is stored in a database in the EU. Our list of subprocessors names every company involved and where it processes data.

Who is responsible for the consent log?

You are the controller for the records of your visitors, and we process them on your behalf. Our data processing agreement sets out what we may and may not do with them.

A note on the law

Cookiemark's defaults follow three rules that European regulators apply to cookie banners.

• Refusing must be as easy as accepting. That is why the reject button sits on the first screen and looks like the accept button.
• No box may be ticked in advance. That is why every optional category starts switched off.
• Withdrawing must be as easy as consenting. That is why the button to reopen is on every page.

Cookiemark is a tool, not legal advice. It cannot know which cookies your site sets, what your tags do with data, or which laws apply to your visitors. You remain responsible for these things:

• a cookie list that is complete and correct;
• texts that describe what really happens on your site;
• the settings you change, such as the look of the buttons, the Consent Mode setting and region targeting;
• every script Cookiemark cannot hold back, such as tags inside Tag Manager without a consent trigger.

If the stakes are high for your organisation, ask a privacy lawyer to look at your finished site.