What Are Social Media Cookies and How Do They Track Website Visitors?

 





Social media cookies are small identifiers that platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, X and YouTube use to recognise a browser as it moves around the web. They are set or read whenever a website loads one of the platform's features, such as a share button, a login widget, an embedded video or an advertising pixel.

How they reach a visitor's browser

The visitor does not need to click anything. When the page loads, the platform's script runs and can set its cookies. In the Fashion ID case in 2019, the Court of Justice of the EU described visitor data reaching Facebook as soon as a page with a Like button loaded, even for people without a Facebook account.

The three main types

  • Functionality cookies make social features work, such as "Log in with Facebook".
  • Advertising cookies support retargeting and conversion tracking. Meta's _fbp and _fbc are common examples.
  • Analytics cookies measure engagement with embedded content, such as YouTube's VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE.

Common examples by platform

PlatformExample cookieWhat it does
Meta_fbcStores the click ID from a Facebook ad
LinkedInUserMatchHistorySyncs IDs for ad targeting
YouTubeVISITOR_INFO1_LIVETracks video engagement
Xguest_idDistinguishes users across sessions

What the law asks of website owners

Under GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive, social media cookies used for advertising or analytics need prior, informed consent. Pre-ticked boxes do not count. In California, the CCPA gives people the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of their personal information. France's CNIL fined Facebook Ireland 60 million euros in 2022 because refusing cookies was harder than accepting them.

How Seers helps

Seers.ai is a consent management platform built for this job:

  • It scans your site and sorts every cookie and script into a category.
  • It blocks social media cookies in real time until the visitor agrees.
  • It shows the right banner for each region, in more than 28 languages.
  • It keeps real-time logs of consent choices for audits.
  • Google Consent Mode v2 and IAB TCF v2.2 switch on with one toggle.
  • It installs on WordPress, Shopify, Magento and Drupal without code.

You can start with a free cookie audit or a 14-day free trial.

Location: United States

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