Cookie Policy

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your device - computer, smartphone, or tablet - when you visit a website. They are widely used to make websites work more efficiently, to personalise your experience, and to provide information to the website owner about how visitors use the site.

Cookies are identifiers transferred to your device through your web browser to enable the web server to recognise your browser on subsequent visits. For example, if you log in to your Smart Cover account or begin a quote, a cookie allows the website to remember your details so you don't have to re-enter them each time.

There are two main types of cookies by duration:

• Session cookies - temporary cookies that exist only for the duration of your browsing session. They are deleted from your device when you close your browser.
• Persistent cookies - cookies that remain on your device for a set period of time (ranging from days to years), or until you manually delete them, regardless of whether you close your browser.

Cookies can also be categorised by who sets them:

• First-party cookies - set directly by smart-cover.co.uk (Smart-Cover Direct Limited) for core website functionality.
• Third-party cookies - set by external services and partners integrated into the Smart Cover website, such as Google Analytics, AWIN affiliate tracking, and advertising platforms.

Smart-Cover Direct Limited uses cookies on smart-cover.co.uk to help personalise your online experience and to ensure the website functions correctly. The purposes for which we use cookies include:

• Essential functionality - maintaining your login session, keeping your quote basket intact, protecting forms from CSRF attacks, and remembering your cookie consent preferences.
• Performance monitoring - understanding which pages are most visited, identifying technical issues, and measuring page load times to continuously improve the website.
• Analytics and audience insights - using Google Analytics to understand how visitors navigate the site, which products attract the most interest, how long visitors stay on pages, and where traffic originates from.
• Affiliate attribution - tracking referrals from affiliate partners via AWIN to correctly attribute commission and manage our affiliate marketing programme.
• Advertising measurement - using the Facebook Pixel and advertising cookies to measure the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns and to serve relevant advertisements to people who have previously visited smart-cover.co.uk.
• Security - CSRF tokens and session management cookies protect your account and form submissions from unauthorised access.

In addition to cookies, smart-cover.co.uk uses web beacons (also known as web bugs, tracking pixels, or clear GIFs). A web beacon is a transparent image file - typically a 1×1 pixel GIF - embedded in web pages or emails to monitor how users interact with the content.

Web beacons may be used in association with cookies to understand how visitors interact with the pages and content on smart-cover.co.uk. They can tell us, for example, whether a page was viewed, whether an email was opened, and which links were clicked.

Smart Cover specifically uses a Facebook Pixel (Pixel ID: 1220271209419348) on smart-cover.co.uk. This pixel is a piece of JavaScript code that:

• Tracks visits to pages on smart-cover.co.uk after interacting with a Facebook or Instagram advertisement
• Enables Smart Cover to measure the effectiveness of Facebook advertising campaigns
• Allows Smart Cover to show targeted advertisements on Facebook and Instagram to people who have previously visited smart-cover.co.uk (known as retargeting or remarketing)
• Enables Smart Cover to build "Custom Audiences" and "Lookalike Audiences" for advertising purposes

Below is a full list of the cookie categories used on smart-cover.co.uk, including every individual cookie name, its duration, and what it does. Click each category to expand the full cookie table.

You have the right to accept, decline, or customise your cookie preferences on smart-cover.co.uk at any time. You have three ways to manage your cookies:

Some cookies on smart-cover.co.uk are set by third-party services integrated into the website. Smart-Cover Direct Limited does not control these third-party cookies and their operation is governed by the privacy policies of the respective third parties. The main third-party cookie providers used on smart-cover.co.uk are:

• Google LLC (Google Analytics & Google Ads) - analytics and advertising measurement. Google Privacy Policy
• Meta Platforms Inc. (Facebook Pixel) - advertising measurement and retargeting. Meta Privacy Policy
• AWIN Ltd (Affiliate Tracking) - affiliate referral and commission attribution. AWIN Privacy Policy

Links from smart-cover.co.uk to third-party privacy policies are provided for your convenience. Smart-Cover Direct Limited is not responsible for the content or practices of third-party websites or services.

Smart Cover's use of cookies is governed by two UK laws:

• UK GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) - the UK version of GDPR retained after Brexit, governing how personal data collected via cookies is processed, stored, and used.
• PECR (Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003) - the UK regulations that specifically require websites to obtain user consent before placing non-essential cookies on a user's device.

Under PECR, Smart-Cover Direct Limited:

• May place strictly necessary cookies without consent, as these are essential for the website to operate
• Must obtain your informed, specific, and freely given consent before placing functional, performance, analytics, or advertising cookies on your device
• Must provide clear and complete information about which cookies are used, why, and how long they last - as set out in this policy
• Must make it as easy to withdraw consent as it was to give it

The legal basis for processing personal data collected via analytics and advertising cookies under UK GDPR is consent (Article 6(1)(a)). You can withdraw your consent at any time by adjusting your cookie preferences via the consent banner or your browser settings.

Smart-Cover Direct Limited reserves the right to update, revise, or amend this Cookie Policy at any time as the website evolves, new cookies are introduced, or legal requirements change. The date at the top of this page indicates when the policy was last revised.

Where changes are material - for example, the introduction of a new category of cookies or a new third-party service - we will, where reasonably practicable, bring these changes to your attention by displaying a notice on the website or by re-presenting the cookie consent banner for your renewed consent.

If you have any questions about this Cookie Policy, how Smart Cover uses cookies, or how your personal data is processed, please contact us using the details below. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) if you believe your data rights have been infringed.