Are cookie banners distorting website statistics? This white paper reveals how people feel about website privacy.
Privacy? Yes, but not at the expense of convenience
43% of respondents said privacy was important to them, but only 32% actually rejected cookies or adjusted their settings. There is a gap between attitudes and behaviour: many people want privacy but are reluctant to take active measures to achieve it.
General attitudes towards privacy do not depend on educational background — privacy is now a mainstream concern across society.
Traditional cookie banners: user behaviour in numbers
- 68.36% of respondents accept all cookies.
- 27.64% reject cookies or allow only essential cookies.
- 4.00% open the detailed settings.
If only around two thirds of all visitors are fully recorded, tracking has blind spots — affecting web analytics, campaign optimisation and conversion rates.
Publishers: when a cookie banner becomes a paywall
Many publishers use subscription-dependent cookie banners: only subscribers can reject all cookies. Users' responses are clear:
- 52.37% accept cookies to access content for free.
- 26.55% deliberately switch to incognito mode.
- 25.82% leave the site immediately.
- Only 18.72% subscribe to avoid cookies.
Incognito instead of consent: quiet resistance
41.09% of respondents regularly use incognito mode, and 63.46% regularly delete their entire browsing history.
What marketers should do now
- Prioritise first-party tracking (Matomo, Piwik PRO, server-side GTM).
- Reduce attribution windows to realistic lengths.
- Make consent strategies user-friendly, transparent and legally compliant.
- Introduce server-side tracking to reduce losses caused by ad blockers.
- Analyse and activate tracking data early.
- Evaluate alternative identifiers (contextual targeting, CDPs, enhanced conversions, CAPI).