What Is a Cookie?
A cookie is a short text file placed in a visitor’s browser by a website. It helps store data like:
- Whether the visitor is logged in
- Items in a cart
- Page visit history
- Consent preferences
- SessionA session is a single visit to your website: a group of a visitor's actions within one window of time. Most analytics reports are built on it. or tracking identifiers
Cookies can be:
- Session-based, disappearing when the browser is closed
- Persistent, stored for a defined period
They're used for convenience features, and also for tracking, analytics, and advertising. The tracking side is why browsers and regulators have put limits on them.
Why Cookies Are No Longer Enough
Cookies used to be the backbone of tracking for analytics and ads. That’s changed due to:
- Privacy laws like GDPR, CCPA, and PECR
- Browser changes (Safari and Firefox block third-party cookies by default, and Chrome still allows them but lets people turn them off)
- Mobile restrictions (like iOS App Tracking Transparency)
- User awareness and growing demand for data control
As a result, cookies are now one piece of a broader tracking strategy, and often an optional one.
Do Ad Platforms Still Use Cookies?
Not in the traditional way, because ad platforms like Google Ads, Meta Ads, TikTok Ads, and others have moved away from relying on third-party cookies. Instead, they now depend on:
- First-party dataInformation collected directly from your website visitors, customers, or users, such as form submissions, purchase history, and behavior on your site. collected directly from websites
- Event-based tracking sent through JavaScript or API calls
- Enhanced conversions, which send personal details like a name, email, phone number, or address to the ad platform so it can match the conversion to a real person
In most modern setups, platforms use server-side or client-side event tracking that no longer depends on browser cookies to work. Cookies might still help connect events to a session, but they're no longer the core of how attributionThe process of determining which channels, campaigns, or actions contributed to a conversion, helping you understand what influenced a visitor’s decision to take action. or targeting happens.
Cookies and WordPress Sites
WordPress itself uses cookies for basic features:
- Logging in
- Remembering comment fields
- Managing session states (like WooCommerce carts)
However, when you add analytics tools or embed third-party scripts (for ads, videos, forms), you're likely setting non-essential cookies, which often require user consent. That's why many sites add a cookie consent banner or use tracking methods that don't need cookies.
How Conversion Bridge Works With (and Without) Cookies
Conversion Bridge can work with cookies or without them:
- For its own session tracking and conversion journeys, Conversion Bridge lets you choose between cookies and a fingerprinting method that doesn't use cookies (fingerprinting can only follow a visitor for a single day)
- It follows your cookie banner, so platforms that need consent don't get events from visitors who decline (cookieless analyticsCookieless analytics measure your website traffic without storing cookies on visitors' browsers, a privacy-first approach used by tools like Plausible and Fathom. platforms can still get them, depending on your setup)
- It does not require cookies to send events to analytics or ad platforms
Either way, Conversion Bridge tracks purchases, form submissions, button clicks, and other conversions and sends them to the platforms you've connected.
Enhanced Conversions Without Relying on Cookies
Since ad platforms no longer rely heavily on cookies, enhanced conversions have become common. They send personal details like a name, email, phone number, or address (usually hashed) with a conversion event, so the ad platform can match it to a real person even when cookie tracking is blocked or incomplete.
Conversion Bridge supports enhanced conversionsEnhanced conversions send customer details, like email and name, usually hashed, so ad platforms can match more conversions to the people who saw your ads. for the ad platforms that accept them, using JavaScript or a direct API connection depending on the platform. This allows your ad accounts to:
- Match conversions to ad clicks more accurately
- Train their algorithms with better data
- Attribute performance even when third-party cookies are unavailable
That's useful for agencies, ecommerce store owners, and marketers whose sites face strict privacy rules.
Privacy-First Analytics Without Cookies
Conversion Bridge integrates with many analytics platforms that don’t rely on cookies at all, including:
These platforms use first-party, anonymized, or fingerprinted data to give you clear performance metrics without setting traditional browser cookies. Conversion Bridge sends those tools the events from your WordPress site.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Conversion Bridge require cookies to track conversions?
No, it can use cookies or fingerprinting for its own session tracking, and it sends events to your analytics and ad platforms either way. If you use a cookie banner, tools that need consent wait for the visitor to agree.
What happens if a user declines cookies?
If they decline, Conversion Bridge won't set tracking cookies. It can still send anonymous events to cookieless analytics platforms, depending on your setup.
How do enhanced conversions work without cookies?
Instead of relying on a browser identifier, enhanced conversions send personal details the visitor gave you (like an email address) at the moment of the conversion. The ad platform uses them to match the event to the right person without cookie data, and Conversion Bridge handles that for you.