Aklamio’s cookie set up

Why does Aklamio use cookies?

Aklamio offers customer incentive programs & more specifically the most widely used product amongst Aklamios B2B customers is the referral program. On the latter cookies are utilized to guarantee the functionality.

To make that clear let’s look to understand how that works from a technical point of view.
A user will sign up in Aklamio’s platform by creating a user-account using their email-address. To this email-address a reward is later assigned for the respective incentive action. In the referral case a matching between that “referrer” account to the purchase needs to be made. The information needed that links these is stored in a cookie.
Hence it is essential that a proper cookie policy is accounted for.

Overview of types of cookies

Overview of Aklamio’s cookies

When are cookies absolutely necessary?

The use of cookies that are strictly necessary (also referred to as « necessary » or « essential ») does not require the consent of the user. However, there is no binding catalog of necessary cookies.

The views on when cookies are strictly necessary range from « Only if a website would otherwise not be technically usable according to minimum standards » to « Google Analytics cookies are necessary to operate a website economically and thus to keep it alive at all ».

At least the following cookies can be considered necessary according to the predominant legal views:

• Shopping cart cookie

  The storage of the products selected in an online store in a cookie is considered necessary.

• User input

  Even if user input is stored, e.g. in online forms that span several web pages, this storage may be considered necessary.

• Login

  The login status, e.g. in a community, is expected from a user and may therefore be considered absolutely necessary.

• User security

  When using cookies for security purposes, in addition to their necessity, their purpose must also be considered. Above all, necessary measures that serve to protect users and their data (e.g., the prevention of so-called brute force attacks through repeated login attempts) are permissible.

• Language selection

  The storage of the language selection on an international website is also expected by users and is considered necessary.

• Cookie opt-in

  Cookies that store cookie consent are also absolutely necessary so that the « cookie banner » does not reappear each time the website is called up.

• Playback of multimedia content

  Provided that the cookies are essential for playback, they may be used (so LG Köln, 29.10.2020 – 31 O 194/20).

• Load balancing

  Cookies that serve to evenly distribute the load (load balancing) of a website are considered essential.

Source: Datenschutz Generator

Why do Aklamio’s tracking cookies need to be set as strictly necessary cookies?

If Aklamio’s tracking cookies are set up as session cookies, or targeting cookies we won’t be able to track the purchase of the user if they leave the website and close the browser during the process.

Cookies can be defined as strictly necessary or essential if without their presence, the functionality is compromised. The sole purpose of Aklamio’s tracking cookie as described above is to match the (not personal) data of the referrer so that they can get the reward later on for the referral that leads to a purchase.

Session cookies only retain information about a user’s activities for as long as they are on the website. Once the web browser is closed, the cookies are deleted.

Therefore, it’s important to set the Aklamio cookies as strictly necessary cookies, as those are “persistent cookies” and remain in operation even after the web browser has been closed. They must be deleted after 12 months.

Source: Rocket Lawyer

Strictly necessary cookies are essential for websites to provide simple functions or to access particular features. They are usually first-party cookies and let users go back and forth between websites without loosing their previous actions.

Strictly necessary cookies to not require user consent at all: most cookie laws, including the EU General Data Protection Regulation, allow strictly necessary cookies to be exempt from collecting use consent before performing their actions.

Source: Cookie-Script

More information to be found in this article from the European Data Protection Board:

https://ec.europa.eu/justice/article-29/documentation/opinion-recommendation/files/2012/wp194_en.pdf

Use cases

How cookies are used in Aklamio’s referral and cashback software:

When a user clicks on the link and follows through the flow to the customer’s website, a cookie is being placed. If the user continues their flow and gets to the check out page, this cookie is used as one of the parameters to identify the user and assign the reward to their purchase.
However, should the user decide not to finish their purchase journey in that one session and closes the browser, the cookie – if not set as necessary – will get deleted. If the user then goes back to the same page at a later moment, it won’t be possible for Aklamio’s technology to track the purchase and assign the conversion to the user. This would lead to a bad UX for the user, a not positive experience and an increase in customer support requests. Though if the cookie is set as strictly necessary, there is no problem if the user closes the browser during their flow as the cookie will be stored.

On top of that if the data-transfer of relevant data is done directly from your CRM to Aklamio’s API it is essential that the info on the referrer (Aklamio AID) is sent back to Aklamio. This parameter is created by Aklamio & sent to you when a user clicks on a referral link. This is usually stored in a cookie. This needs to be set as strictly necessary, otherwise the functionality of the program is compromised.

Example of cookie settings for Three UK: