Cookie Policy

Last Updated: 09 January 2026

This Cookie Policy explains how Crimson Social (“we” or “our”) uses cookies and similar technologies on our website, what types of cookies we use, and what your choices are regarding those cookies. It should be read alongside our Privacy Policy (above) which covers our broader data handling practices.

By using our website, you can choose which cookies to accept or reject (apart from those that are strictly necessary for the site to function). You can change your cookie preferences at any time through our cookie consent manager or via your browser settings as described below.

1. What are Cookies?

Cookies are small text files that websites place on your device (computer, smartphone, etc.) when you visit. They are widely used to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the site owners. Cookies allow a website to remember your actions or preferences over time. For example, cookies can enable you to stay logged in, remember items in a shopping cart, or provide analytics about how people use the site.

Cookies set by the website owner (in this case, crimsonsocial.co.uk) are called “first-party cookies.” Cookies set by parties other than the website owner (e.g. by our analytics or advertising partners) are called “third-party cookies.” Third-party cookies enable features or functionalities provided by those third parties (such as analytics, interactive content, or targeted advertising) to be used on or through the website.

We also use technologies similar to cookies, like pixels, web beacons, or local storage, to achieve similar goals. In this policy, when we refer to “cookies,” this includes these other technologies as well.

2. How We Use Cookies

We use cookies to enhance your experience on our site, to understand how our site is used, and to support our marketing efforts. Specifically, cookies help us to:

• Ensure the Website Works Properly: Some cookies are essential for the functioning of our site. They enable core features like security, network management, and accessibility. For instance, necessary cookies keep track of your cookie consent choices so we don’t ask you every time, and they help load pages faster and prevent security threats. Without these, our website may not perform as intended.
• Provide Enhanced Features: Certain cookies allow us to offer additional functionalities, such as remembering your preferences or simplifying interaction with external services. These “functional” cookies aren’t strictly required but improve your experience (for example, enabling the Calendly scheduling widget or remembering any preferences you set on the site).
• Analyze Website Usage: We use analytics cookies to collect information about how visitors interact with our site – which pages are visited most, how users navigate, any error messages, etc. This data is aggregated and helps us improve the content and structure of our website. It also helps us measure the performance of any campaigns directing traffic to our site (e.g. if we run a promotion, analytics cookies can show us how many people came and what they did). We only use analytics cookies if you have given consent, in line with regulations.
• Deliver Personalized Ads and Content: We use advertising (marketing) cookies to track your online activities and interests so that we can provide advertising that is more relevant to you. These cookies may be set through our site by advertising partners (like Meta/Facebook). They remember that you have visited our site, and this information is shared with other organizations (for instance, so you might see an ad for our services on Facebook later). Marketing cookies also help ensure that the same ads do not continuously reappear and to measure the effectiveness of ad campaigns.

Some of the cookies used on our site are session cookies (which last only for the duration of your browser session and are deleted when you close your browser) and some are persistent cookies (which remain on your device for a set period or until you delete them). In the list below, we provide the typical duration for each cookie.

3. Cookies We Use – Categories and Specific Cookies

For transparency, we have grouped the cookies used on our site into four categories: Necessary, Functional, Analytics, and Marketing. Each category is explained below, along with examples of the cookies that fall into that category and what they do.

Note: The exact cookies in use may change over time as we update our site and services. We regularly scan our website to keep this list as accurate as possible. You can always view the most up-to-date cookie list via our Cookie Declaration (see Section 5).

a. Necessary Cookies

These cookies are essential for the operation of our website. They enable core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility. Necessary cookies do not collect any personally identifiable information – they are not used for analytics or advertising. Without these cookies, certain services on our site cannot be provided properly.

Examples of Necessary cookies we use include:

• CookieYes Consent (cookieyes-consent) – Duration: 1 year. This first-party cookie is set by our CookieYes consent management tool to remember your cookie preferences (which categories you accepted or rejected). It ensures that your preferences are respected on subsequent visits to our site, so you don’t get repeatedly asked to reconfirm choices. This cookie does not store any personal information about you; it only contains a record of consent given.
• Cloudflare Security Cookie (__cf_bm) – Duration: 30 minutes. This cookie is set by Cloudflare, which we use for website security and performance. It is used to distinguish between humans and bots in our traffic, helping to filter out malicious bots and protect our site. The __cf_bm cookie is necessary for mitigating automated attacks. It does not identify you personally and is automatically deleted after a short period.
• XSRF-TOKEN / WordPress Session Cookie (if applicable) – Duration: session. Our site may set a session cookie to maintain your session state (especially if you log into a client-only area or our blog CMS). For instance, WordPress (if our site runs on it) uses cookies like PHPSESSID or wordpress_logged_in to keep you logged in as you navigate the site. These are essential for site functionality and security. They expire when you close your browser or shortly after. (We currently do not have user login areas on the public site, so these might not be present for all users.)

Necessary cookies cannot be turned off via our consent banner because the site cannot function properly without them. However, you can still block them using your browser settings (see Section 5), but be aware this may cause certain parts of the site to break.

b. Functional Cookies

Functional cookies (also known as “preference cookies”) enable enhanced features and personalization on our website. While not strictly required for basic operation, they allow the site to remember choices you make (such as language or region selection) and provide a more convenient experience. They may be set by us or by third-party services that we have integrated into our site for functionality. If you do not allow these cookies, some features may become unavailable or may not function optimally.

Examples of Functional cookies:

• Calendly (_cfuvid) – Duration: session. This cookie is set by Calendly (via Cloudflare) when you use our embedded scheduling widget. It helps maintain the continuity of the scheduling session and user preferences across page loads. Essentially, it ensures that when you navigate through the scheduling process, the information you’ve entered (like selected date/time) or any preferences are not lost. This cookie is only in use while the Calendly widget is active and does not track you outside of the scheduling function.
• HubSpot Chat (messagesUtk) – Duration: 6 months. Applicable only if we enable a chat feature on our site. HubSpot sets messagesUtk to recognize visitors who use the chat widget, so that if you chat with us multiple times, we can see past conversations. It attaches your identity (if known) to the chat sessions. This improves functionality by allowing a continuous conversation. If you decline functional cookies, our chat widget (if present) will be disabled, and this cookie won’t be set.
• YouTube Embed Cookies (e.g., yt-remote-device-id, yt-remote-connected-devices) – Duration: persistent. If we embed YouTube videos on our site (e.g., in blog posts), YouTube may set cookies to remember your video player preferences (such as volume level, subtitles). We classify these as functional because they pertain to how the media content is served. (Note: we currently do not have embedded videos, but we mention this for completeness.)

Functional cookies are optional. By default (if you have not consented), our site will either not set these cookies or will block the third-party feature that uses them. For example, our cookie banner will prevent the Calendly embed from loading until you opt in to Functional cookies (or until you interact to load it).

c. Analytics Cookies

Analytics cookies (also called “statistics cookies”) help us understand how visitors engage with our website. Using these cookies, we or our third-party analytics providers collect aggregated information about things like the number of visitors, which pages are most popular, how long people spend on certain pages, and any errors encountered. This information is anonymous – it does not directly identify any individual. We use it to analyze site traffic and usage patterns so we can improve our content and user experience.

We only set analytics cookies on your device if you consent to them via our cookie banner. If you decline, we will not collect analytics data about your visit (aside from basic, necessary logging in our server which does not use cookies).

Analytics cookies in use on our site include:

• Google Analytics (_ga, _gid, etc.) – (If applicable) We may use Google Analytics to collect web statistics. Google Analytics sets cookies such as _ga (to distinguish users by a unique ID) and _gid (to distinguish users on a daily basis), among others. These cookies track information like your page views, traffic source, and browser information. For instance, _ga can have a long lifespan (up to 2 years) and helps count how many people visit our site by assigning each a random identifier. Currently, we are not using Google Analytics on our site. If we introduce it, we will update this policy and ensure GA cookies are only set with consent and configured for compliance (e.g., IP anonymization).
• Hotjar (_hj cookies)* – We use Hotjar for behavior analytics. Hotjar cookies include:
  • _hjSessionUser_{site_id} – Duration: 365 days. Set when you first visit a page with Hotjar. It stores a Hotjar User ID unique to our site, which persists so that Hotjar can recognize your returning visits. This helps us connect multiple sessions into one “user” (anonymous) in Hotjar’s analysis. It does not track you across different websites (only our site).
  • _hjSession_{site_id} – Duration: 30 minutes. This cookie holds current session data. It ensures that all the events (page views, clicks, etc.) during your visit are attributed to the same session ID. The cookie is extended if you continue activity, and it expires if you are inactive for 30 minutes.
  • _hjIncludedInPageviewSample – Duration: 2 minutes. This cookie tells Hotjar whether you are included in the sample of visitors that we’re measuring. We set Hotjar to only record a certain percentage of visits; this cookie helps manage that.
  • There are other Hotjar cookies for additional features (like polls or feedback widgets), which we will list in our Cookie Declaration if in use. Hotjar cookies are used purely for analytics on our site.
• HubSpot Analytics (__hstc, hubspotutk, __hssc, __hssrc) – HubSpot sets several cookies to track visitor activity on our site and tie it to our HubSpot CRM. Key ones:
  • __hstc – Duration: 6 months. This is the main HubSpot tracking cookie. It contains a visitor ID and timestamps of your first visit, last visit, current visit, and session count. This allows HubSpot to track your visits over time and see how often you return.
  • hubspotutk – Duration: 6 months. This cookie keeps track of a visitor’s identity. It is passed to HubSpot when you submit a form (so that HubSpot can associate your past visits with your form submission and create a single contact record). Essentially, if you fill out a form and become a lead, this cookie helps us know that the lead is the same person who browsed certain pages earlier. The cookie contains an opaque GUID (global unique identifier) for your device.
  • __hssc – Duration: 30 minutes. This cookie keeps track of sessions. It increments the session count for HubSpot if a session is new (used to determine if HubSpot should increment your session number and timestamps in the __hstc cookie).
  • __hssrc – Duration: session. This cookie is set to 1 when you start a new session (i.e., open the browser). If we don’t find this cookie on your next visit, HubSpot assumes you closed and reopened your browser, and thus treats it as a new session.
  • These HubSpot cookies collectively allow us to analyse website use and also integrate with our contact database. They are considered both analytics and marketing (because they tie into lead tracking). We only deploy them if you consent to analytics/marketing cookies. HubSpot’s platform then allows us to see, for example, that “Contact X visited our pricing page 2 times in the last week.” This helps us gauge interest and follow up appropriately. All HubSpot data is for our internal use and is not shared by HubSpot with others.
• Facebook/Meta Pixel (_fbp) – Duration: 3 months. This cookie is set by the Meta Pixel on our site and falls under the marketing/analytics overlap. Facebook uses _fbp to identify browsers for delivering advertising and site analytics services. When the Meta Pixel is installed, it generates this first-party cookie containing a unique identifier for your browser and site combination. It allows us to track visitor activity on our site and then potentially show related ads to that visitor on Facebook or Instagram. For example, if you visited our site, the _fbp cookie helps Facebook recognize your browser and can enable us to “re-target” you with an ad. It also helps measure ad conversions (seeing if you come back to our site after clicking an ad). According to Meta, _fbp lasts for 90 days. It does not store personally identifiable info like your name, but it does track your browser behaviour. We treat this as a Marketing cookie – it will only be set if you opt in. (We list it here as well because some classifications call it an analytics cookie.) 

In summary, analytics cookies collect information that is used in aggregate form to understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help customize our website for you. We do not use analytics cookies to track you across the internet or to figure out your identity without your knowledge. All analytics data we gather is used to enhance our site and services.

d. Marketing Cookies

Marketing cookies (also known as advertising or targeting cookies) are used to track visitors across websites and display ads that are relevant to the individual user. These cookies may be set through our site by third-party advertising partners. They remember that you have visited our site, and they may record information about your online browsing habits and interests. The goal is to enable advertising networks to show you targeted ads on other sites (or on social media feeds) that are tailored to your interests, as inferred from your interactions with our site and others.

We use a limited number of marketing cookies, primarily related to Meta (Facebook/Instagram) advertising:

• Meta/Facebook Pixel Cookie (_fbp) – (Also described above.) Duration: 3 months. Classified here as a marketing cookie, _fbp is used by Facebook to deliver a series of advertisement products such as real-time bidding from third-party advertisers. In practical terms, after visiting our site (with _fbp set), you might see ads for Crimson Social when you later browse Facebook or Instagram. The cookie helps Facebook not only to target ads but also to ensure the same ad isn’t shown too many times and to measure the results of ad campaigns. If you opt out of marketing cookies, the Meta Pixel (and _fbp) will not be loaded, and you will not receive our targeted ads based on that visit. (You may still see our ads if Facebook decides to show them to a broad audience, but it won’t be because of a cookie-based retargeting.)
• Additional Advertising Platforms: As of the last update, we primarily use Meta for online advertising. We are not currently running Google Ads remarketing or other ad networks that set additional cookies on our site. If that changes (for example, if we add the Google Ads conversion tag, which could set a _gcl_au cookie, or LinkedIn Insight which might set LinkedIn cookies), we will update this policy accordingly and list those cookies. Any such cookies would also require consent.
• Third-Party Ad Cookies: Sometimes, other sites or embedded services might set marketing cookies. For instance, if we embedded a YouTube video, YouTube might set advertising cookies that track usage for ad personalization on YouTube. We have not identified such cookies in our current usage (since we have no embedded content that serves ads). We will mention any that are detected in our Cookie Declaration.

Marketing cookies will only be set if you explicitly allow them through our cookie consent banner. If you disable these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising, but you will still see generic ads (for example, on Facebook or other websites, the ads just may not be tailored to your interests related to our site).

It’s worth noting that even if you opt in to marketing cookies, we do not have access to your personal profiles on those ad networks – we receive reports and insights in aggregated form. For example, Facebook may tell us that “100 people visited your site from this ad, and of those, 10 signed up,” but we cannot identify those individuals from cookies alone. The profiling happens on the third-party side, and your data is subject to those third parties’ privacy policies.

Cookie List: Below is a quick-reference table of some key cookies and their classification:

Cookie Name	Category	Purpose	Duration
cookieyes-consent	Necessary	Remembers user’s cookie consent preferences. No personal data stored.	1 year
__cf_bm	Necessary	Cloudflare bot management (security). Distinguishes bots from humans.	30 minutes
_cfuvid (Calendly)	Functional	Maintains session for Calendly embed (scheduling). Ensures continuity of scheduling process.	Session (browser close)
__hstc (HubSpot)	Analytics/Marketing	Main HubSpot analytics cookie. Tracks visits and timestamps for HubSpot analytics.	6 months
hubspotutk	Analytics/Marketing	HubSpot user token. Keeps track of visitor identity (for form submissions).	6 months
hjSessionUser{ID}	Analytics	Hotjar user identifier cookie. Persists a unique user ID for aggregate analytics.	365 days
hjSession{ID}	Analytics	Hotjar session cookie. Keeps current session data.	30 minutes
_fbp	Marketing	Facebook/Meta Pixel cookie. Identifies browsers for advertising and analytics; used to deliver targeted ads on Facebook/Instagram.	3 months
(others)	–	Any additional cookies (e.g., from new integrations) will be listed in our online Cookie Declaration.	–

For the full, most up-to-date list of cookies in use, please see our Cookie Declaration. We scan our site regularly for cookies, so the declaration will reflect any changes (such as new cookies or retired ones).

4. Your Consent and Choices

Cookie Consent Banner: When you first visit our website, you are presented with a cookie banner that allows you to accept all cookies, reject non-essential cookies, or customize your preferences by category. Until you make a choice, we will not set any cookies other than those strictly necessary for the site to function. If you choose “Accept All,” you consent to us placing all the categories of cookies described above on your device. If you choose “Reject” or decline certain categories (Analytics, Functional, Marketing), we will honour that choice and not use those cookies.

We use the CookieYes Consent Management Platform (CMP) to record your preferences. Once you make a selection, our site will remember it via the cookieyes-consent cookie so that the banner does not keep reappearing and your preferences persist for future visits (for up to one year, unless you clear your cookies sooner).

Managing Preferences: You can change or withdraw your consent at any time. There are a few ways to do this:

• Via Our Website: If you want to adjust your cookie preferences for our site, click the “Cookie Settings” link or button on our website (typically found in the footer or the banner if you bring it back up). This will bring up our consent tool again, allowing you to toggle categories on or off and save your new preferences. Your new choices will take effect immediately. For example, if you previously accepted analytics cookies but now opt out, our site will stop using them and won’t set them going forward (and you may manually delete the previously set ones via your browser).
• Via Your Browser: You can also manage cookies through your web browser settings. Most browsers allow you to see what cookies you have and delete them on an individual or bulk basis. They also typically allow you to block cookies from specific sites or from all sites. For instance:
  • In Google Chrome, you can go to Settings > Privacy and Security > Cookies and other site data to adjust cookie preferences or see cookies and site data.
  • In Safari (Mac), you can go to Preferences > Privacy > Manage Website Data to see and remove cookies.
  • In Mozilla Firefox, you can go to Options > Privacy & Security > Cookies and Site Data to clear cookies or set exceptions.
  • In Microsoft Edge, go to Settings > Site Permissions > Cookies and site data.

(For detailed, up-to-date instructions, refer to Chrome’s guide, Safari’s guide, Firefox’s guide, or Edge’s guide.) Keep in mind that if you disable cookies entirely in your browser, our necessary cookies may not function, and you might not be able to log in or use some features on various websites. It’s usually better to leave necessary cookies enabled or to use the site-specific controls described above.

• Do Not Track and Global Privacy Controls: Some browsers or browser extensions allow you to send a “Do Not Track” (DNT) signal or use a Global Privacy Control (GPC) to indicate you do not want to be tracked. Our site’s behavior in response to DNT/GPC: We currently honour cookie preferences through our CMP as described. GPC is a relatively new mechanism; if we detect a GPC signal, we will treat it as an opt-out of cookies in the applicable categories for which GPC is intended (e.g., sale/sharing under California law). However, for consistency and completeness, we recommend using our provided consent tool to manage cookies on our site.

Consequences of Declining Cookies: If you choose to reject certain cookies, please note that some parts of our site may not function properly or your user experience may be less personalized. For example, if you disable functional cookies, you may not be able to use the embedded calendar to book appointments and might have to contact us via email instead. If you disable analytics, we will have less insight into how to improve our site for users. That said, using our site with minimal cookies is absolutely your right, and we have designed our site to still be accessible without analytics or marketing cookies.

5. Cookie Declaration and More Information

For a detailed and up-to-date list of all cookies and tracking technologies in use on our website, please refer to our Cookie Declaration page. This declaration (maintained by our CookieYes tool) provides the names of cookies, their providers, categories, purpose descriptions, and durations. It is automatically updated whenever we add or remove cookies on our site, typically after our periodic site scans.

Cookie Declaration – View Full Cookie List

By reviewing the Cookie Declaration, you can get granular details, such as whether a cookie is first or third party, the exact lifespans, and links to the third-party privacy policies where available.

If you have any questions or concerns about our use of cookies, you can always reach out to us at dpo@crimsonsocial.co.uk. We will be happy to clarify any aspect of this policy.

For more general information on cookies and how to manage them, you might find resources on the ICO website or websites like AllAboutCookies.org helpful.

Remember: Your consent applies only to cookies on our domain (crimsonsocial.co.uk). If you follow links from our site to external websites, those sites will have their own cookie policies and consent mechanisms.

By using our site and allowing cookies (per your preferences), you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Cookie Policy. Thank you for helping us respect your privacy and preferences.

This policy forms part of our Terms of Service and should be read with our Privacy Policy