Articles on: Integrations

Microsoft Universal Event Tracking Consent Mode

Microsoft Consent Mode refers to the Universal Event Tracking (UET) which is the new privacy standard for website owners that use the Microsoft Advertising Platform (MAP). It's Microsoft's move to comply with increasingly strict regulations in the EEA.

Introduction



Universal Event Tracking (UET) consent mode lets you adjust UET cookie access based on the consent status of your visitors. This enhances the privacy capabilities of UET and gives you control over whether first and third-party cookies are stored.

For the purposes of UET consent mode, first-party cookies are those created by the advertiser domain (your Shopify store), and third-party cookies are created by Microsoft Advertising (Bing.com).

It is required for advertisers using Universal Event Tracking (UET) tags to gather proper consent prior to tracking.

Not having proper consent, might impact your campaigns, conversion tracking and other vital features from the Microsoft Advertising Platform.



The implementation process is as simple as checking a checkbox inside the application settings.

Navigate to the app's Settings > Integrations and find the Microsoft Consent Mode integration, and check the checkbox.





Without any further action the consent default signal will be sent on every page load, which means that you are ready to load the UET tags and be compliant!

Two ways to add the UET tags



From the Pandectes Microsoft Consent Mode Integration (Recommended)

Add the UET tag ID to the field in the Pandectes Settings > Banner > Behaviour tab. You can add multiple ID's by seperating them with commas. (',')

For example, if your tag ID is 187144941, you would add it like this:



From the Theme.liquid file

Add the code snippet that you have from Microsoft to your theme.liquid file. Make sure it's below the line:

{% render pandectes-rules %}

It will look like this:



And there you go! You are now Microsoft Consent Mode compliant.

How it works



You can see details on how Microsoft Consent Mode works in the official Microsoft documentation.

Depending on how your store settings are setup and the user's location, the necessary consent default signal is sent.

window.uetq.push('consent', 'default', {
    'ad_storage': 'denied'
    });



After user's actions, like sending a consent, partial consent, or revoking consent, the necessary consent update signal is sent.

window.uetq.push('consent', 'update', {
    'ad_storage': 'granted'
    });


Basic VS Advanced mode



While the UET tag exists on your store from the moment that the page loads the _uetmsdns cookie is set to 1 by default, so that no 3rd party cookies by Microsoft are set before consent. This means that the tag does not send events at all, if no consent is given. (Basic mode)

Implementing this with the cookie _uetmsdns set to 0 would mean that Microsoft cookies fire prior to consent, and as of the time this article is written, we found no information on how these cookies operate when consent is set to denied and whether they are considered GDPR compliant, and so until more information comes out, tags can only send events after consent.

Updated on: 19/12/2024

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