Plum Guide Cookie Policy
When you engage with our website, we employ cookies and similar online tracking technologies (referred to as 'cookies' in this Cookie Policy).
These cookies serve multiple purposes, such as facilitating the functionality of the Plum Guide website, analysing website traffic, and ads supporting advertising endeavours.
Explanation of cookies and online tracking methods A web browser cookie is a small text file that websites place on your computer’s or mobile device’s web browser to store information about the content you view and interact with. This helps in remembering your preferences and settings or analysing your usage of online services.
Cookies come in two types: 'first party' and 'third party':
- First party cookies are served by the owner of the domain, such as Plum Guide. Any cookie placed by PlumGuide.com is termed a 'first party cookie'.
- Third party cookies are placed on our domains by social media partners and advertising partners
Cookies can also be categorised as 'session cookies' or 'permanent cookies':
- Session cookies exist until you close your browser, ending your session, and are then deleted.
- Permanent cookies stay on your device even after closing the browser, though we aim to limit their lifespan on our website. However, under certain circumstances, a longer lifespan might be necessary for security reasons.
Although these technologies have different functions, they are collectively referred to as 'cookies' in this Cookie Policy.
How Plum Guide uses cookies Cookies facilitate storing preferences and data when using our website and the websites of our trusted partners. In terms of functionality, cookies are categorised into three types: functional cookies, analytical cookies, and marketing cookies.
Functional cookies: These cookies are essential for the operation of our website, and they need to be enabled for you to access our services. Functional cookies as used for crucial security and accessibility features. In addition we use them to make the platform more user-friendly and adapt to your preferences making browsing and booking easier.
Specifically, these cookies:
- Retain your registration information, eliminating the need to re-enter login credentials upon each visit
- Ensure the proper functioning of our website and apps, allowing you to create an account, sign in, and manage bookings.
- Remember your selected currency, language settings, past searches, and other preferences to enhance efficiency.
Analytical cookies: These cookies gauge and monitor the usage of our website and apps, aiding in the enhancement of our services. Analytical cookies:
- Provide insights into visitor and customer usage patterns, assisting in the improvement of website, app, and communication strategies.
- Identify effective and ineffective aspects of our platforms.
- Allow storage of web visitor data (i.e. visit duration) in Google Analytics
The data collected through these cookies includes viewed web pages, entry and exit points, platform types, and opened emails. For routine improvements to the Plum Guide platform, we run A/B tests which utilise cookie data and interactions such as clicks, mouse movements, scrolling behaviour, search queries, and text input.
Marketing cookies: These cookies, used by Plum Guide and trusted partners like Microsoft, Google and Facebook, compile information about our website visitors across multiple platforms for marketing purposes. Marketing cookies assist in determining relevant products, services, and interest-based advertisements to display on and off our platforms. Specifically, they:
- Create interest profiles based on browsing behaviour, influencing personalised content presentation.
- Deliver personalised and interest-based advertisements on our platforms and external websites through retargeting strategies.
- Send user data related to advertising to our Google Ads dashboard, as well as signal consent for personalised content (i.e. video recommendations).
- Incorporate social media functionality into our platforms, allowing content sharing and engagement on various social networks.
We collaborate with trusted third parties to gather data and may share information with them, like email addresses or phone numbers, in a hashed and non-identifiable format. These third parties combine this data with other information to create custom audience segments or deliver targeted ads. Please refer to the following links for insights into how these third parties process data: Google's data usage policies, Facebook's data policy, Microsoft Ads policy. Cookie choices you have at your disposal
Updating browser settings: In the settings of browsers like Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, or Chrome, you have the flexibility to select which cookies to accept and which to decline. The location of these settings varies based on the browser you use:
On certain browser types, you can prevent Google Analytics from gathering analytical data by visiting the following link: Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on (available only on desktop).
At present, we do not utilise technology that acknowledges "do-not-track" signals sent from your browser.
Additional details regarding cookies, such as how to view the cookies currently stored on your device and how to control or remove them, can be accessed at www.allaboutcookies.org and www.youronlinechoices.eu.
Please be aware that opting for any of the choices outlined above does not exempt you from seeing advertisements. However, these ads will not be tailored to you based on the personal data gathered through tracking technologies, and thus may not be as closely aligned to your interests.
Also, please note that if you opt to block specific functional cookies, it might restrict your access to certain features of our services.
Updating Plumguide.com cookie settings: In addition to your browser settings, upon your initial visit to our site, where required by law, you will be provided with the choice to decline consent for the Google Advertising and Google Analytics cookies we employ by de-selecting the [✓] within the “Marketing Cookies” and “Analytics Cookies” checkboxes on the “Manage cookies” modal.
Subject to change We retain the authority to adjust or revise this privacy statement as needed, ensuring compliance with relevant data protection regulations.