Explicit cookie consent

Explicit cookie consent lets Piper the AI SDR Agent load and greet visitors before they accept cookies. In each location where you turn it on, Qualified waits to save its visitor cookie until the visitor agrees, so visitors who haven't answered your cookie banner can still see and engage with your agent.

It builds on Privacy consent: when a visitor tries to chat or call, your privacy consent prompt appears first, and the conversation starts once they accept.

How explicit cookie consent works

Many teams load Qualified only after a visitor accepts their cookie banner. A visitor who doesn't click Accept doesn't see your AI SDR agent, and your team misses the chance to engage them or book a meeting. With explicit cookie consent turned on for a location:

• Before the visitor consents: your agent appears and can send general messages about the page. Qualified doesn't save its visitor cookie, and your agent doesn't personalize messages with anything it knows about the visitor. Qualified forms and meeting bookers on the page still work.
• When the visitor tries to chat or call: your privacy consent prompt appears first. The chat or call starts only after the visitor accepts.
• After the visitor accepts: the chat or call continues right away. Qualified saves its visitor cookie, your agent returns to fully personalized behavior, and the visitor's acceptance is remembered on future visits.

What the visitor experiences

Messages before consent

Before consent, your agent's messages use only the content of the page the visitor is on. They don't use the visitor's name, company, past visits, email or ad clicks, or offers. Once the visitor accepts, personalized messages resume.

Turning on explicit cookie consent

Explicit cookie consent is set for each location in your messenger theme's privacy consent settings.

1. Navigate to Settings > Organization > Themes and open the theme that serves your website.
2. In the Multimodal Messenger settings, scroll to the Privacy Consent section.
3. Set Consent request mode to Show consent for select locations.
4. Add the country or US state where consent is required, and write the disclosure text the visitor will see.
5. Turn on Require explicit cookie consent for that location.
6. Under Data mapping, choose the default yes/no field for all privacy disclosures.

Require explicit cookie consent is off by default. Locations where it stays off keep the standard privacy consent behavior described in Privacy consent.

Recording consent to a different field

Each location can use + Add field override to write the visitor's answer to a different field for that location, such as a "Cookie consent (Germany)" field. Only fields of type Checkbox are available.

If the visitor denies consent, Qualified leaves the override field empty.

Connecting your cookie banner

If you want a visitor who accepts your existing cookie banner to count as consenting to Qualified too, have your web team add this line wherever your banner handles acceptance of the relevant category:

qualified("setCookieConsent", true);

• You choose which banner category, such as Functional or Marketing, allows Qualified.
• Qualified doesn't read your banner directly. This line is the only connection.

Responding to visitor choices

When a visitor clicks Accept or Deny on the privacy consent prompt, Qualified can tell your website. You can use this to keep your own systems in step with the visitor's choice, for example by sending it to your analytics or tag manager.

To use it, have your web team listen for the qualified:consent event:

window.addEventListener("qualified:consent", function (event) {
  // event.detail.allowed is true if the visitor accepted, false if they denied
});

• This is optional. Explicit cookie consent works without it.
• The event fires on every choice. A visitor who denies and later tries to chat again sees the prompt again, and the event fires again with their new answer.

Installs that set hasCookieConsent

Some installs tell Qualified whether the visitor has agreed to cookies at the moment Qualified starts, using the hasCookieConsent setting. Salesforce AppExchange installs always do this, and some self-hosted installs do too:

qualified("initialize", "TEAM_TOKEN", { hasCookieConsent: false });

On these installs your own code stays in charge of cookies:

• If your code sends hasCookieConsent: true, Qualified saves its cookie right away.
• If your code sends hasCookieConsent: false, Qualified runs without saving a cookie until your code calls qualified("setCookieConsent", true).
• Qualified doesn't run its own location check, so Require explicit cookie consent has no effect on cookies. The privacy consent prompt still shows wherever it's configured.

To move a self-hosted install to explicit cookie consent, contact your QSA. Before you switch, make sure every location that needs consent is configured: with hasCookieConsent: false, Qualified waits for consent everywhere, and after the switch it waits only in locations where Require explicit cookie consent is on and saves its cookie right away everywhere else.

Important considerations

• Cookies only: before consent, Qualified still identifies companies, runs analytics and runs integrations. Only the visitor cookie is held back. If you need no data processing at all before consent, keep Qualified behind your own consent tool.
• New visitors on every page: without a cookie, Qualified can't connect page views, so refreshing, moving to another page or submitting a form that redirects starts the visitor over. Expect fewer return visitors and more new visitors in locations that require consent.
• Turning the setting on resets existing visitors: visitors in that location who already had a Qualified cookie are treated as new and need to consent once.
• Consent stays in place: once a visitor accepts, they stay accepted, even if you later edit the disclosure text, turn the setting off and on again, or the visitor travels to another country.
• Qualified email links don't count as consent: a visitor who clicks a link in an email from your agent still sees the pre-consent experience, and your agent doesn't reference the email until they accept.
• Clearing the cookie from your banner: on sites using explicit cookie consent, qualified("setCookieConsent", false) no longer removes Qualified's cookie. Installs that set hasCookieConsent aren't affected. If your banner's reject option is how you clear Qualified's cookie today, contact your QSA before turning this on.

Troubleshooting

How can I tell whether a visitor has consented?

In Chrome, open DevTools, go to Application, then Cookies, and look for a cookie that starts with __q_state.

• No cookie in a location that requires consent means the visitor hasn't consented yet.
• A cookie means the visitor consented, or the location doesn't require consent.

The visitor is asked for consent again on every visit.

• Their browser may be blocking or clearing cookies, for example in private browsing, with strict privacy settings or with an extension.
• Check that they accepted from the privacy consent prompt, or that your banner code actually runs qualified("setCookieConsent", true).

A visitor in a location that requires consent isn't seeing the prompt.

• Confirm that Require explicit cookie consent is on for the correct location, on the theme that serves that site, and that the change was saved.
• The visitor's IP address may place them somewhere else, for example because of a VPN.
• A visitor who accepted before isn't asked again.

Your banner shows the visitor accepted, but the prompt still appears.

Your code probably isn't calling qualified("setCookieConsent", true), or it's attached to a different banner category than the one the visitor accepted. Have your web team check.