Does TeleportHQ analytics use cookies?
No. TeleportHQ's built-in visitor analytics never sets cookies. By default it also stores nothing in your visitors' browsers, except on sites with a TeleportHQ store, where it saves recent order numbers after a purchase. It counts anonymous page views, visits and clicks without names or email addresses, and doesn't keep IP addresses with visit records. Only when a visitor clicks Accept on your site's cookie banner does it save a random ID in their browser, so it can recognize them when they come back.
This article describes how TeleportHQ analytics works. It isn't legal advice. Ask a legal advisor which notices and consent your own site needs.
What TeleportHQ analytics records
When visitor analytics is on and your site is published, TeleportHQ adds a small script to your site. The script sends TeleportHQ:
- the pages people view (the address only; anything after
?or#is removed), and on the page a visitor lands on, the names of the address's parameters without their values, so a buyer coming back from paying stays in the same visit (TeleportHQ doesn't store them), - visits (a visit ends after 30 minutes without activity, or when the visitor arrives again from a different website or campaign link than the one the visit started from) and the time spent on each page,
- clicks on links, buttons and elements you mark for tracking (the first 64 characters of the element's text, its ID and class names, and where a link points), and how far down the page people scroll,
- the website that sent the visitor, and UTM campaign tags on the first page of a visit,
- the screen width, the device type, the browser and the operating system,
- the country and region.
TeleportHQ analytics doesn't read names, email addresses or what visitors type into forms. The script turns itself off on localhost and in automated browsers.
Two details of TeleportHQ click tracking are worth knowing. For links to other websites, the full link address is sent, including anything after ?. And a button's text is sent as it appears on the page, so if a button shows something personal, for example a signed-in visitor's name, that text is recorded too.
How visitors are counted without cookies
Without consent, TeleportHQ analytics recognizes a visitor for one day at most:
- When a visit arrives, TeleportHQ sends the visitor's IP address to a third-party location service to look up an approximate location (country and region only). The IP address is also used in memory to build an anonymous visitor code for that day.
- The code mixes the IP address and browser details with a secret that changes every day. The old secrets are deleted after 48 hours.
- TeleportHQ doesn't store the IP address with the visit. Two short-lived records do use it: to apply the per-address traffic limit, TeleportHQ counts each address's events for 24 hours, and to avoid looking up the same address twice, it keeps a scrambled (hashed) form of the address with its location for up to 30 days.
Because the secret changes daily, the same person visiting on Monday and Tuesday counts as two visitors. That's why Visitors is a close estimate and why Retention stays near zero without a cookie banner.
What changes when a visitor clicks Accept
TeleportHQ analytics checks whether the visitor accepted your cookie banner. The TeleportHQ Cookie Consent element saves the visitor's answer, Accept or Decline, in the browser's local storage (a small storage area in the browser, similar to a cookie but never sent to servers). When a visitor has accepted:
- the script saves a random ID in local storage, not based on anything personal, so it can recognize the visitor on later days, and a visit ID that lasts while the browser tab is open,
- Retention (returning visitors) starts to fill in.
A visitor who clicks Decline is counted like one who doesn't answer: anonymously, without a saved ID.
A banner from another tool works the same way only if it saves cookieConsent with the value accepted in local storage. See How to add a cookie consent banner.
On sites with a TeleportHQ store, the analytics script also saves tp_purchases in local storage when a visitor completes a purchase, whether or not they clicked Accept. It holds the visitor's last 50 order numbers, so a purchase isn't counted twice when the confirmation page is reloaded.
Store sites remember where a visit came from (its UTM campaign tags, the first page and the website that sent the visitor) so an order can record which campaign brought the sale. Until the visitor clicks Accept, it is only held while the page is open, never saved in their browser.
How long data is kept
| Data | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Detailed visit records and visits | 90 days |
| Hourly totals | 14 months |
| Daily totals | 26 months |
The Visitor analytics card in Growth Settings says "deleted after 90 days". That refers to the detailed visit records. Totals, which hold no individual visits, are kept longer so reports over long periods still work. When a trial ends or a subscription lapses, TeleportHQ deletes all visitor analytics for the workspace's projects.
The notice on your Terms & Conditions page
When you publish with analytics on, TeleportHQ adds a Website Analytics section to your Terms & Conditions page (a page named Terms & Conditions, Terms and Conditions or Terms of Service). It describes what is collected, the daily-changing anonymous code, the 90-day deletion and how visitors can object. A message confirms: "Your Terms & Conditions page was updated with the visitor analytics disclosure." If your project has no such page, nothing is added, so write your own notice.
The TeleportHQ analytics notice says full IP addresses are "processed only momentarily in memory" and "never stored". It doesn't name the third-party location service, and it doesn't mention the 24-hour traffic counter or the 30-day location record described above.
The notice also tells visitors they "may decline analytics in the cookie consent banner where available". The TeleportHQ Cookie Consent banner has a Decline button, but declining only stops the saved ID: a visitor who clicks Decline is still counted anonymously, as described above.
About the wording you see in TeleportHQ
The TeleportHQ editor describes the same behavior in slightly different words:
- Growth Settings says "no cookies by default". In practice the analytics script sets no cookies at all.
- The Retention tab says returning visitors are "measured from visitors who accept analytics cookies". The consent is given through the cookie banner, but what's saved is a local storage entry, not a cookie.
- The generated Terms & Conditions page has a general "Cookie Policy" section. Other parts of your site may use cookies, even though TeleportHQ analytics doesn't.
Other things on your site may use cookies
TeleportHQ analytics is one part of your site. Other features can set cookies or send data to third parties, for example:
- Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager and advertising pixels you add. With a TeleportHQ cookie banner, Google Analytics and Tag Manager wait for Accept (Google's consent mode); advertising pixels you paste into custom code still load as soon as a page opens. See How to add Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager and How to add a tracking pixel.
- Sign-in on web apps, which keeps visitors logged in with a cookie.
- Embedded videos, maps and chat widgets.
Consider all of these together when you decide on your cookie banner and privacy notice.
Good to know
- You can turn TeleportHQ analytics off at any time. See How to turn visitor analytics on or off and choose tracked pages.
- Your live site keeps the analytics script it was last published with. Publish your site again so it works as this article describes.
- How TeleportHQ handles your own account and project data is a separate topic. See How TeleportHQ handles your project data and privacy.