Snap Pixel and cookie consent: how to hold it until the visitor agrees

If you run Snapchat ads, the Snap Pixel on your site records visits and purchases and sends them to Snap. Its script loads from sc-static.net, it stores a first-party cookie called _scid on your domain, and its events go to tr.snapchat.com.

Holding the pixel until the visitor chooses means stopping all three: the script, the cookie and the events. This guide shows how, how to treat server-side events from the Snap Conversions API, and how to check your site.

How to hold the Snap Pixel

The dependable way is to keep the base code from running until the visitor accepts marketing. If the script never loads, no cookie is set and no event is sent.

• In Google Tag Manager, fire the Snap Pixel tag on a consent trigger instead of All Pages.
• If the base code is pasted in your theme, let your consent banner block it. A banner with script blocking holds the script from sc-static.net and the requests to tr.snapchat.com until the visitor accepts marketing.
• Put the banner script above the Snap Pixel code in the page head, so it runs first.

Server-side events: the Conversions API

Events sent from your server through the Snap Conversions API never pass through the visitor's browser, so a banner cannot hold them. Your server has to act on the visitor's choice.

Send marketing events only for visitors who accepted. Snap's documentation also describes marking a web event as an opt-out with an LMU value. Its parameters page calls the field data_processing_options and its usage page calls it data_use, so check which name your integration sends.

When the Conversions API runs next to the pixel, Snap's parameters page says the _scid cookie value goes in the sc_cookie1 field.

Check your site in five minutes

Your browser's developer tools show what the pixel does before anyone clicks the banner.

• Open your site in a private window and do not touch the banner.
• Open the developer tools, then Application (Storage in Firefox) and Cookies. Look for _scid on your domain.
• In the Network tab, filter on snap and reload. Look for sc-static.net and tr.snapchat.com.
• Choose Reject all, reload, and check that neither appears.
• Open a new private window, choose Accept all, and check that the pixel now runs.

Or let a real browser check for you: the free website scan lists the trackers that load before consent.

If you use Arqam360

Turn on Enforce Script Blocking in the banner settings. The Arqam360 banner then holds the Snap Pixel script from sc-static.net and its events to tr.snapchat.com until the visitor accepts Marketing, and releases them at that moment. Blocking is off until you turn it on, so a site that has not switched it on runs the pixel as before. Put the banner script above the Snap Pixel code.

How the server-side route works: Snapchat Conversions API integration.

Sources