From compliance to conversions: Cookie banner best practices

Cookie banners are deceptively complex. While they seem like a small feature on your website, they must balance data protection laws and their evolving consent requirements, user experience (UX) considerations, and marketing performance.

A cookie banner designed for maximum privacy compliance may discourage users from giving consent for processing their personal data. Conversely, a banner that prioritizes opt-in rates may fall short of regulatory standards, which can expose your business to legal risks and potentially damage your brand reputation. 

This guide offers practical advice for designing a cookie consent banner that strikes the right balance between regulatory compliance and user engagement while maximizing acceptance rates. 

What to know before designing a cookie banner

While many best practices for cookie banners exist, there’s no one correct approach. “You need to be aware of what regulations, guidelines, and policies are relevant to your business,” says Usercentrics Director of Product, Eike Paulat. “These may overlap depending on what industry you’re in and how international your operations are.” 

Clarifying your obligations from the start makes it easier to design a cookie banner that achieves privacy compliance and aligns with your broader goals. Here’s what to consider before you begin:

• Where users are located: Privacy compliance requirements are typically based on a user’s location. If users access your website from multiple regions, you must design various cookie banners to meet legal standards across those jurisdictions.
  
• Which privacy laws apply to you: Once you know where your users are located, identify which laws are relevant to your practices. Regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) have different rules for consent, transparency, and personal data processing that influence how you should design your banner.
  
• How opt-in rates impact marketing performance: Generally, the higher your consent acceptance levels, the more data you can collect to optimize your marketing strategies. Factors like the location of your target market and users’ attitudes toward data privacy will impact these levels. For example, websites collect the highest amount of data in the US, where most states follow an opt-out model and fewer users take the extra step to decline. 

• Your cookie consent goals: While the laws set boundaries, you still have some choice over banner design. For instance, many websites have adopted a “consent or pay” model in which users agree to cookies in exchange for free access to content. Where this flexibility exists, your banner design should reflect your business priorities, whether that’s fostering trust or maximizing data collection.

Cookie banner privacy compliance 

Now that you’ve clarified your legal responsibilities, the next step is to design your cookie consent banner so it meets privacy compliance requirements in practice. Doing so is essential for protecting your business and avoiding hefty fines. For instance, the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) charged TikTok a EUR 5 million penalty in 2023.

Here are two tips for translating regulations into a compliant website notice.

Understand what relevant privacy laws say about cookie consent

Without a clear understanding of the law, it’s easy to design a cookie notice that appears compliant but fails under scrutiny. You must not only be familiar with the requirements but also correctly interpret all the individual terms, definitions, and requirements.

One consistent requirement across most privacy regulations is transparency through notification. While specifics vary by law and region, most frameworks expect organizations to inform users via a cookie notice about:

• What personal data is collected and how
• The categories of data being collected
• The purposes for data processing
• The third parties or tools with whom data is shared
• The types of cookies and trackers in use
• The user’s privacy rights (e.g. access, deletion, withdrawal of consent)
• How users can manage or exercise those rights

Beyond this baseline requirement, data protection regulations include subtle differences that are easy to misinterpret. For example, Art. 4 GDPR defines consent requirements in broad terms like ‘freely given,’ which may lead some businesses to assume that pre-ticked boxes are acceptable. In reality, these don’t meet the standard for explicit consent because they lack clear, affirmative action from the user. 

If you don’t have the in-house expertise required to understand and adhere to these complex laws, seek guidance from a certified Data Protection Officer (DPO). They can break down the relevant requirements and recommend how to apply them to your cookie banner before you launch it. Depending on your company’s size and setup, you can either hire a full-time DPO or outsource to third-party services.

Use a tool that enables compliance with various regulations

Consent management can quickly become unmanageable without the right tools. It takes significant resources to manually stay up to date with complex and ever-changing privacy laws, especially when your website visitors are from various countries and legal jurisdictions.

Consent management platforms (CMPs) like Usercentrics are the most effective solution. The software enables you to embed dynamic cookie banners in your website. When a user visits, the CMP automatically adapts its features and content to reflect their local privacy requirements.

For example, someone in the EU might see an opt-in form with all boxes unticked, as required by the GDPR’s standard for explicit consent. Meanwhile, a US-based user may see a simple notification with information on how to opt out of cookies and tracking.

Cookie banner UX and design 

Once legal foundations are in place, the next step is to consider your cookie banner’s design. This is important for both collecting valid consent and reducing friction that can discourage users from opting in.

Prioritize a frictionless user experience

“Businesses should prioritize user experience by making cookie banners visually appealing, easy to understand, and simple to interact with,” says Paulat. 

Doing so helps you obtain explicit user consent in compliance with data privacy laws like the GDPR and ePrivacy Directive. A user-friendly banner that reduces friction can also improve acceptance rates, as users will be less likely to decline or withdraw consent and leave your website out of frustration.

Here are a few practices that can help make your cookie consent banner both compliant and user-friendly:

• Design your cookie popup as a wall rather than a footer banner
• Ensure the ‘Decline All’ button is fully visible 
• Make all settings easily accessible
• Optimize for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets
• Spread information across notice layers
• Use links if your banner already contains several buttons

“Offering granular consent choices and enabling users to modify or revoke consent easily demonstrates respect for user privacy and control over personal data,” says Paulat. So, avoid oversimplifying your banner at the expense of giving users options. 

Create a design that aligns with your brand image 

Aligning your cookie consent notice with the rest of your website helps foster trust with users. Consistent branding makes it clear that the banner comes from your business, not some anonymous third party. This makes visitors more likely to engage with the pop-up and consent to cookies and other tracking technology.

A CMP like Usercentrics enables you to create branded cookie banners for your website. The tool provides the features necessary for privacy compliance, and makes it easy to adjust colors, text, and layout, and add your company logo. These branded elements remain consistent even as the CMP adapts your cookie banner to comply with different regional laws.

Cookie banner optimization 

The next priority is to maximize opt-in rates without sacrificing user experience or introducing legal risk. Below are some tips for optimizing your cookie pop-up and notice while maintaining privacy compliance. 

Use clear, transparent language that your customers will understand

The language you use in your cookie banner has a direct impact on how users respond to it. Confusing and vague wording can undermine trust in your brand, which can cause visitors to withdraw or decline consent. 

On the other hand, clear and transparent language helps demonstrate your organization’s commitment to respecting user privacy and behaving ethically, which encourages users to accept.

In addition to following plain language principles, use these guidelines to ensure your banner copy is clear for informed consent:

• Avoid jargon like ‘data controller’ or ‘functional cookies’
• Explain high-level terms when there are no acceptable alternatives
• Be specific about your data collection practices and cookie usage
• Maintain a neutral tone so your notice doesn’t influence decision-making
• Use consistent words and phrases throughout

Your notice also needs to appear in each visitor’s preferred language, as automated browser translations can make your message unclear. A CMP like Usercentrics automatically registers each user’s location and changes your cookie banner’s language. If the user selects a different language, the software applies this preference and maintains it for all future sessions.

A/B test and analyze data to optimize your banner

A/B testing helps you refine your cookie banner. For example, you can learn how small adjustments to the design or copy impact how users interact with the feature. With this information, you can make improvements to your banner to increase engagement and opt-in rates.

The Usercentrics CMP, for example, has A/B testing capabilities that enable you to create different variations of your cookie banner design and track the performance of each. While the A/B test is running, the CMP collects data about each variant’s engagement levels, consent choices, and opt-in rates to give you in-depth analytics about which one generates the best results.

Cookie banner implementation best practices

Before going live, you need to make sure your cookie consent banner works consistently across regions. Let’s explore the best approaches to testing and deploying your banner for optimal performance from day one.

Test your cookie banner across devices before launching

Testing your cookie banner across all major devices and browsers can help you catch issues ahead of launch. That way, you’ll have time to fix problems that might affect user experience and opt-in rates or create gaps in your privacy compliance efforts.

Run the following tests to verify that your cookie banner is functioning as expected:

• Confirm that the cookie consent notice looks right across major browsers and devices
• Ensure all interactive elements work properly, like buttons and tick boxes
• Use a VPN to verify that the banner adapts to different regions and their data protection requirements
• Check that the cookie banner is compatible with accessibility features like touch screens and screen recorders
• Test the loading speed to correct any lag

Choose an automated cookie consent solution for easier implementation

A CMP can simplify setting up cookie pop-ups and ongoing privacy compliance. This software automates time-consuming tasks to keep your banner accurate and up to date with minimal effort.

The Usercentrics CMP runs automated cookie scans that can detect all the tracking tools your website uses during setup and beyond. The software scans your site at regular intervals and automatically adds any new trackers it finds to your cookie notice and privacy policy to help you meet legal obligations and maintain trust with users.

The software also automatically adjusts your notice to meet evolving cookie banner requirements. 

For example, when the CPRA introduced a new law calling for websites to publish a “Do Not Sell Or Share My Personal Information” notice, the CMP added this feature to banners for all website visitors from the state of California. Time-saving automations like this one save you from doing extensive, ongoing research into every jurisdiction’s laws and potentially overlooking important updates.

Optimize opt-in rates while achieving privacy compliance

Cookie banners must go beyond meeting legal requirements to maximize data collection and foster user trust. The challenge is balancing these often opposing goals.

Usercentrics CMP simplifies this task by enabling you to easily create dynamic cookie banners for your website. Automated scans and updates keep your banner accurate and compliant, and you still have the flexibility to customize the design. 

The CMP also integrates with our Preference Manager, which enables you to collect consent, preferences, and permissions for zero- and first-party data. The tool activates user consent and preferences effortlessly across channels and marketing tools for personalized communication that leads to better engagement and lasting customer relationships.

The result is stronger privacy compliance, greater access to customer data, and a solid brand reputation built on trust and transparency.