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Cookies that might be placed on contacts' devices

Dotdigital places cookies and similar technologies on your contacts' devices to provide certain features. This article explains what those cookies are and how they work.

Written by Gareth Burroughes
Updated this week

When contacts interact with certain Dotdigital features, such as web behaviour tracking, surveys, or Chat, cookies, small text files, are stored on their devices. The tables in this article cover each feature, the cookies it places, their purpose, and when they expire.

Essential cookies

Some cookies are essential for certain Dotdigital features to work. For example, some cookies identify contacts and ensure they can access subscription-only pages. If a contact disables these cookies, they may not be able to access all content available to them.

Web behaviour tracking (including abandoned cart)

Name of cookie

Type of cookie

Purpose

Expires

Essential

dm_i
recordID
sessionID

First-party; persistent

Tracks and identifies a contact as they browse a site's pages. The data collected supports more precise segmenting and targeting.

Ranges from a cookie that expires after 20 minutes (collecting session information on pages visited) to cookies that expire after 365 days.

No

Site and ROI tracking

Name of cookie

Type of cookie

Purpose

Expires

Essential

dm_i

First-party; persistent

Tracks contacts whilst they browse a site’s pages and records any ROI data, should they make a purchase. This data is then available in reporting, and for ROI split testing.

One hour

No

Surveys, pages, and forms

Name of cookie

Type of cookie

Purpose

Expires

Essential

Survey-X

where X is a reference to the survey number being taken

First-party if a survey is accessed using a direct link or third-party if the form is a pop-over or embedded; persistent

Tracks and identifies a respondent as they answer the survey and records when the survey is complete.

365 days after first view of the survey.

Yes

respondentidX

where X is a reference to the survey number being taken

First-party if a form is accessed using a direct link or third-party if the form is a pop-over or embedded; persistent

Tracks and identifies a respondent as they answer the survey and records when the survey is complete.

30 days after the first view of the survey.

Yes

responder-X

where X is a reference to the survey number being taken

First-party if a form is accessed using a direct link or third-party if the form is a pop-over or embedded; persistent

Tracks and identifies a respondent as they answer the survey and records when the survey is complete.

N/A - is a session cookie

Yes

respondentidXcount

where X is a reference to the survey number being taken

First-party if a form is accessed using a direct link or third-party if the form is a pop-over or embedded; persistent

A counter to stop users filling in the same form in a second time and overwriting any previous submissions.

N/A - is a session cookie

Yes

Survey-Started-X

where X is a reference to the individual taking the survey

First-party if a survey is accessed using a direct link or third-party if the survey is a pop-over or embedded; persistent

Tracks and identifies a respondent as they answer the survey and records when the survey is complete.

365 days after first view of the survey

Yes

X-Completed

where X is a reference to the survey number being taken

First-party if a form is accessed using a direct link or if the form is a pop-over or embedded; persistent

Used to track if a user has completed a pop-up form.

365 days after the first view of the form.

Yes

X-Dismissed

where X is a reference to the survey number being taken

First-party if a form is accessed using a direct link or if the form is a pop-over or embedded; persistent

Used to track if a user has dismissed a pop-up form.

7 days after the first view of the form.

Yes

lpformX

where X is a reference to the ID of the landing page containing the form

First party, persistent, HTML5 local storage-based

Enables someone filling in a form to save their progress so they can return to complete the form at later date.

HTML5 prevents application developers from specifying expiration; individual web browsers can define expiration policies

Yes

LP-X

where X is a reference to the Dotdigital user who created the landing page

First-party, persistent

Identifies the contact to ensure that personalised content is shown only to the intended viewer.

30 days after last view

Yes

__cf_bm

Third-party, persistent

Cloudflare security cookie used for bot detection.

After 30 minutes of inactivity.

Yes

cf_clearance

Third-party, persistent

Cloudflare security cookies set once a user successfully passes a challenge such as a CAPTCHA.

365 days from challenge completion.

Yes

Pages built with Surveys, pages, and forms and Landing pages

Name of cookie

Type of cookie

Purpose

Expires

Essential

LP-X

where X is a reference to the Dotdigital user who created the landing page

First-party, persistent

Identifies the contact to ensure that personalised content is shown only to the intended viewer.

30 days after last view

Yes

Abandoned cart functionality of the Shopify connector

Name of cookie

Type of cookie

Purpose

Expires

Essential

dm-subscriber

Holds the email address of the visitor, supplied by Shopify

N/A

Identifies the visitor abandoning a cart and facilitates follow-up messaging.

N/A

No

Abandoned cart functionality of the Shopline connector

Name of cookie

Type of cookie

Purpose

Expires

Essential

dm_sl_cc

First-party, persistent

Identifies a cart as complete to ensure it is no longer tracked.

14 days after the cart or order is complete.

Yes

Chat

Name of cookie

Type of cookie

Purpose

Expires

Essential

comapi.hub.currentState
comapi.hub.lastClicked
comapi.hub.session
comapi.hub.deviceId
comapi.hub.welcomeMessage.sentOn
comapi.hub.profileId
comapi.hub.orphanedEvents
comapi.hub.config
comapi.hub.comapiMessengerState
comapi.hub.comapiConfig

First party, persistent, HTML5 local storage-based

Local storage is used to save the visitor's current chat status, when they last clicked (so it's possible to tell if they're returning to a conversation or not), IDs that enable us to identify the user with a conversation, orphaned conversation message events that enable us to apply them to historic messages, and configuration settings.

HTML5 prevents application developers from specifying expiration; individual web browsers can define expiration policies

Yes

Information

The abandoned cart module also uses web behaviour tracking cookies to track and identify a contact before sending an abandoned cart email.

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