Invoca

AmyBoss · ‎02-14-2024

Like most online platforms, Invoca uses a cookie to function at its best, by identifying your callers and customers across different browser sessions. Cookie consent practices, classification, and management are important topics for most Invoca customers — especially in your efforts to comply with consumer privacy regulations and best practices — and this article will cover the following:

How the Invoca cookie works
Your options for classifying the Invoca cookie to your landing page visitors
Frequently Asked Questions regarding the Invoca cookie

Because this article addresses issues of compliance and regulation, this article is intended for technical information only and does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice.

How the Invoca cookie works

Invoca uses a first-party cookie along with local storage to retain a unique identifier for visitors on your landing page, named "InvocaID". Any other user data, including attribution data linked to that visitor's InvocaID, is stored server-side, not within the cookie. This helps keep the Invoca cookie size small. The Invoca cookie stores no PII information and it does not store the user’s phone number, IP address or other personally identifiable information including phone number.

The Invoca cookie is considered a first party cookie — a cookie owned by your organization, not owned by Invoca. This is because the cookie is generated by your own website via the Invoca Tag. Your Invoca Tag will always check each visitor's Invoca cookie and local storage to see if there is an InvocaID that exists for that website visitor and connects all attribution data from their current session to their InvocaID. If your Tag can't find an InvocaID, it creates a new cookie for that visitor with a unique InvocaID.

Classifying your Invoca cookie

To help compliance with common consumer privacy regulations — including GDPR, CCPA, and others — It's common practice for consumer-facing websites to utilize a cookie consent management system, which gives visitors to your landing page an opportunity to opt out of some or all of your website's cookies. These cookie management systems give visitors the option to deny different types of cookies by classifying them into different types, such as:

Strictly necessary
Functional
Performance
Statistical
Marketing

Since Invoca is a multifaceted tool with many different use cases, the Invoca cookie might not fit the same classification for every customer. Ultimately, it's your organization's responsibility to choose which classification is best for the way you use Invoca.

Here are a few common classifications our customers use, and the use case situation in which you'd choose that classification for your Invoca cookie:

Performance cookie

What it means: A performance cookie collects information about how its visitors use a website, including which pages were visited and which links were clicked on. These cookies enable domains to track visits and traffic sources, aiding in the assessment and enhancement of their site's performance. All data collected by these cookies is aggregated, ensuring anonymity. If users choose not to permit these cookies, the host site won't be aware of the site visits, making it impossible for them to monitor and optimize performance.
When to choose this classification: If your domain relies on Invoca primarily for marketing insights and utilizes our call treatment (IVR) options to better understand the end user’s call experience, the "performance" categorization is the most appropriate classification.

Functional cookie

What it means: A functional cookie is used to provide a personalized experience for your website visitors, and remember any settings or choices they previously made to enhance the user experience for the next visit. If users choose not to enable these cookies, certain services may not operate as intended.
When to choose this classification: If you use Invoca data to provide a tailored call experience to returning visitors on your landing page, classifying your Invoca cookie as "functional" is the most appropriate choice.

Strictly necessary cookies

What it means: Strictly necessary cookies are essential for the proper functioning of the website and cannot be disabled. They are typically activated in response to actions you take, such as configuring privacy preferences, logging in, or completing forms. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.

When to choose this classification: These use cases are more rare with the Invoca cookie but are still possible. For example, if your website is unable to forward phone calls to any effective destination without the routing options in your Invoca campaign, you might choose the "strictly necessary" classification.

Not applicable/not recommended classifications

Most cookie consent platforms also include classification options such as "marketing" or "statistical" cookies. However, despite Invoca being used by marketers, these options are usually less fitting for the Invoca cookie.

Statistical cookies monitor user browsing behavior over a specified duration, collecting data solely for statistical analysis and reporting on visitor interactions with a website. Marketing cookies — typically third-party persistent cookies — track visitor web activity to present targeted advertisements, and gather user information to support online marketing efforts, promoting products through partners and various platforms. Neither of these use activities match any common use case for Invoca.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Invoca still work if a visitor declines / opts out of cookies?

When a customer is presented with a privacy consent prompt, they will be given the option to reject all cookies, or specifically select certain cookie categories to opt out of. Cookies categorized as “strictly necessary” will always remain active.

If your organization does not categorize the Invoca cookie as “strictly necessary” and a visitor to your landing page opts out of the Invoca cookie, an InvocaID will not be assigned to them. Your Invoca account then will not be able to assign a unique phone number on your landing page for that user or collect attribution data.

However, you can still gather some attribution data for these website visitors if you provision a static promo number to display on your website as an overflow number or whenever a customer rejects your Invoca cookie. See our article How to apply the same Marketing Data value for all calls to a promo number to learn more.

If a visitor to my website opts out of the Invoca cookie, will that affect my Invoca integrations?

If your website visitor opts out of your Invoca cookies, your Invoca account will be unable to track the call and will not transmit any data due to the absence of information. However, if you utilize static numbers as a fallback option, as detailed above, some integrations may still be able to receive some data, depending on the integration and how it's set up. Get in touch with your friendly Invoca Customer Success Manager or Customer Support Representative if you'd like to learn more.

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