Install the CookiesNexus script

The banner runs from one script tag. It has to load before anything that sets cookies, so that nothing is stored until the visitor has chosen.

Add the tag to your site

1. 1Open Websites and choose the website.
2. 2Open Installation and copy the script tag. It carries the website's installation key.
3. 3Paste it as the first tag inside `` on every page, above your analytics and ad tags.

Check it works

Open your site in a private window. The banner appears on the first visit, and the website's status changes from Not installed once the first consent arrives.

Add your first website

Every website in CookiesNexus has its own banner, cookie list and consent log. Adding one takes a domain and a client — everything else has a sensible default.

Create the website

1. 1Open Websites and choose New website.
2. 2Enter the domain without http:// or www — for example example.com.
3. 3Pick the client it belongs to, or create one inline.
4. 4Start from the default template, a preset, or duplicate an existing website.

What happens next

The website appears with the status Not installed until the first consent arrives. Install the script, run a scan, then publish the banner — the status flips to Live automatically.

Choose a banner preset

A preset is a saved look: layout, colours, fonts, button sizes and texts. Starting from one gets a website to a finished banner in a few clicks.

Apply a preset

1. 1Open the website and go to Appearance.
2. 2Choose Presets and pick one of the built-in presets or one your team saved.
3. 3Check the live preview on desktop and mobile, then publish.

Save your own

Once a banner looks right, choose Save as preset. The preset is shared with everyone in the workspace and can be applied to any website, new or existing.

Publish and verify consent

Changes to a banner are drafts until you publish them. Publishing sends the new version to every visitor, and each consent from then on records that version.

Publish

1. 1Open the website and review the preview on desktop and mobile.
2. 2Choose Publish. Visitors see the new banner on their next page load.

Verify it in the browser

1. 1Open the site in a private window, so no earlier choice is remembered.
2. 2Before choosing, open the browser's developer tools and check the cookies: only necessary ones may be set.
3. 3Accept statistics only, reload, and check that your analytics cookies now appear and marketing ones do not.
4. 4Reopen the preferences, withdraw the consent, and check that the banner asks again.

Check the log

Every choice you made shows in the website's consent log with its time, categories and banner version. When the first one arrives, the website's status turns Live.

Position and layout options

Where the banner sits decides how much of the page it covers and how quickly visitors answer it. Every layout carries the same choices and texts.

The layouts

• Bar: full width at the top or bottom of the page. The least intrusive.
• Box: a card in one of the bottom corners.
• Dialog: centred over a dimmed page, so the visitor answers before reading on.

Choose one

1. 1Open the website and go to Appearance.
2. 2Pick a layout and its position under Layout.
3. 3Switch the preview between desktop and mobile. On small screens bars and boxes open from the bottom edge.
4. 4Publish when both look right.

Good to know

Layout is per website. The preferences dialog, where visitors choose category by category, looks the same whichever layout you pick.

Fonts, colours and button sizes

This guide walks through fonts, colours and button sizes step by step, with the exact settings we recommend for most websites.

Before you start

Open the website you want to change and make sure you have permission for this area — client users only see what the agency granted them.

Recommended settings

1. 1Change one setting at a time and watch the live preview.
2. 2Publish when the banner looks right on both desktop and mobile.

Good to know

Settings are per website. If you want the same look elsewhere, save it as a preset and apply it when creating the next website.

Category toggles in the banner

Visitors choose by category: necessary, preferences, statistics and marketing. You decide whether those choices appear on the banner itself or only in the preferences dialog.

Show the toggles

1. 1Open the website and go to Appearance.
2. 2Under Categories, turn on Show toggles on the banner.
3. 3Choose which categories are listed. Necessary is always shown, switched on and locked.

Good to know

With toggles on the banner, the middle button reads Allow selection. With them off, visitors reach the categories through Customize.

Advanced CSS scoping

When the appearance settings are not enough, custom CSS changes anything else about the banner. It is scoped: your rules reach the banner only, and your site's styles never leak into it.

Add custom CSS

1. 1Open the website and go to Appearance.
2. 2Open Custom CSS and write your rules against the banner's classes.
3. 3Check the preview on desktop and mobile, then publish.

Good to know

Custom CSS travels with the website: duplicating the website or saving its look as a preset copies it too.

How the scanner works

The scanner visits your website the way a visitor would and lists everything it stores: cookies, local storage and the third-party scripts that set them.

What a scan does

1. 1Starts from the domain's home page and its sitemap, and follows links within the domain.
2. 2Loads each page twice: once before consent and once after accepting everything.
3. 3Records each cookie and storage item with its domain, expiry and the script that set it.
4. 4Sorts what it found into categories from the central database.

After the scan

Open Cookies to see the results. Items the database does not know wait under Unclassified until you give them a category. Scans repeat on a schedule, and you can start one at any time.

Matching the central database

Most cookies come from well-known services. The central database knows them by name and domain, so a scan can sort them without your help.

How a match is made

• By exact name and domain, for example `_ga` set by Google Analytics is statistics.
• By pattern, for names that carry an id, such as `_ga_` followed by a measurement id.
• By the script that set it, when the name alone is ambiguous.

Good to know

An item with no match stays Unclassified, and the banner treats it as marketing until you classify it, so it is never set without consent.

Creating cookies manually

Some cookies are out of the scanner's reach: they are set behind a login, after a checkout, or by a server the scan never calls. Add those by hand so your declaration stays complete.

Add a cookie

1. 1Open the website and go to Cookies.
2. 2Choose Add cookie.
3. 3Enter its name, provider, purpose and expiry, and pick whether it is a cookie or local storage.
4. 4Choose its category and save.

Good to know

A manual cookie shows in the declaration straight away, with the same columns as the scanned ones.

Embedding the declaration

The declaration is the cookie table your privacy or cookie policy needs: every cookie by category, with its provider, purpose and expiry. Scans keep it current.

Add it to your policy page

1. 1Make sure the CookiesNexus script is installed on the page.
2. 2Paste this element where the table should appear.

Good to know

The declaration follows the visitor's language when a translation exists, like the banner itself.

Google Consent Mode v2

Google's ads and analytics tags read the visitor's choice through Consent Mode. In the EEA, Google needs Consent Mode v2 to measure and personalise ads.

Turn it on

1. 1Open the website and go to Integrations.
2. 2Turn on Google Consent Mode v2.
3. 3Keep your Google tags after the CookiesNexus script in ``.

The script sets every signal to denied before Google's tags load, which is the default below, then updates the signals the moment the visitor chooses.

How categories map to signals

• Statistics grants `analytics_storage`.
• Marketing grants `ad_storage`, `ad_user_data` and `ad_personalization`.
• Preferences grants `functionality_storage` and `personalization_storage`.

Consent log and retention

Every choice a visitor makes is recorded as proof that you asked and they answered. The log is what you show a regulator who asks.

What a record holds

• A consent id, which the visitor can see in the declaration.
• The time of the choice and the categories it allowed.
• The banner version the visitor saw.
• The page it was given on.

Retention

Records are kept for the retention period set on the website, then deleted automatically. Keep them for as long as you may be asked to prove a consent.

Look up a consent

Open the website's consent log and search by consent id when a visitor asks what they agreed to, or wants it withdrawn.

Multilingual consent texts

Consent is only informed when the visitor understands the text. The banner speaks each visitor's language when you have a translation for it.

Add a language

1. 1Open the website and go to Texts.
2. 2Choose Add language and pick it from the list.
3. 3Translate each text, or start from the built-in translation and adjust it.
4. 4Publish to make the language live.

Good to know

Texts are plain text. Add links, such as your privacy policy, through the link fields, not by writing HTML into a text.

Auditing your setup

A setup that was right at launch drifts as tags and pages change. Run through this list every few months, and after every change to your site's tags.

The checklist

1. 1The latest scan is recent and nothing waits under Unclassified.
2. 2In a private window, no cookie but the necessary ones is set before the visitor chooses.
3. 3Reject all is on the banner's first layer and as visible as Accept all.
4. 4Choices reach the consent log, each with the current banner version.
5. 5The declaration is on your policy page and lists what the latest scan found.
6. 6Visitors can reopen their choice and withdraw it as easily as they gave it.