Birdeye

Overview

Birdeye consolidates several customer experience functions into one platform: review management, customer surveys, listings management, referral programs, and web chat. The platform pulls in reviews from over 200 sources (Google, Yelp, Facebook, industry-specific sites) and helps businesses respond to and showcase them. On websites, Birdeye's scripts serve the dual purpose of displaying social proof (review widgets) and capturing new customer interactions (chat, surveys).

What This Script Does

Birdeye's client-side scripts embed several interactive components on business websites. Scripts are loaded from birdeye.com and related CDN domains.

Review Display Widgets

The most common integration displays customer reviews and ratings on the website:

• Star rating badges showing the business's average review score
• Review carousel or grid displaying recent reviews from multiple platforms
• Review count and source attribution (Google, Yelp, etc.)

These widgets load review data from Birdeye's servers and render it in the page. They may also include schema.org structured data markup for rich search result snippets.

Chat Widget

Birdeye's Webchat widget provides a messaging interface for visitor inquiries:

• Live chat with business staff or automated chatbot responses
• Option to transition to SMS for continued conversation after leaving the site
• Visitor identification when a phone number or email is provided

Feedback and Survey Forms

Embedded survey components collect customer satisfaction data (NPS, CSAT) and route responses to the Birdeye dashboard.

Cookies and Tracking

• be_session — session cookie for chat and widget interactions
• be_visitor — persistent visitor identifier (up to 1 year) linking interactions across visits
• be_src — stores the referral source for engagement attribution
• be_cx — tracks which widgets the visitor has interacted with and records engagement events

Data Collection

The scripts track visitor interactions with Birdeye widgets: chat messages, review widget clicks, survey responses, and form submissions. Beyond widget interactions, the scripts may monitor page views and referral sources to attribute customer engagement to traffic sources.

Consent & Compliance

Birdeye is classified as functional and marketing. The review display widgets and chat functionality serve clear functional purposes. However, the persistent visitor identification, engagement attribution tracking, and cross-session visitor profiling serve marketing objectives — particularly when used to build customer profiles and attribute engagement to marketing campaigns.

Under GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive, the review display widgets can load without consent as they serve a functional purpose (displaying public review data). The chat widget's session cookie is functionally necessary when the user initiates a conversation. However, the persistent visitor identifier and engagement attribution cookies require consent as they track visitors across sessions for marketing analytics.

Under CCPA/CPRA, Birdeye's cross-session visitor tracking and engagement profiling may constitute "sharing" personal information when the data feeds into marketing analytics and campaign attribution. The review display and chat functions serve legitimate business purposes.

Should You Block This Without Consent?

Conditional. Birdeye's review display widgets serve a functional purpose and can load without consent. The chat widget is similarly functional when user-initiated. However, the persistent visitor tracking, engagement attribution cookies, and cross-session profiling should be blocked until the user consents to marketing cookies. If your Birdeye integration is limited to static review displays and reactive chat, functional classification may suffice. If engagement tracking and visitor profiling are active, marketing consent is required.