Nosto

Overview

Nosto is an ecommerce personalization platform that delivers AI-driven product recommendations, personalized content, and behavioral popup campaigns. It is purpose-built for online retail and integrates natively with Shopify, Magento, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, and custom storefronts. Nosto builds real-time visitor profiles from browsing and purchase behavior and uses these profiles to power recommendation widgets on product pages, category pages, cart pages, and post-purchase flows. The platform is used by thousands of Shopify and Magento merchants to increase average order value and reduce bounce rates.

What This Script Does

The Nosto script (connect.nosto.com/include/<account-id>/shopify.js or equivalent) bootstraps the personalization engine on page load and initializes communication with Nosto's recommendation API.

Cookies set:

• 2c.cId — first-party persistent cookie, typically 1-year expiry, stores Nosto's unique visitor identifier for personalization continuity across sessions
• 2c.cAnon — tracks anonymous visitor state before any purchase or account activity
• Session cookies for cart state and current-session behavioral signals
• Recommendation impression cookies to prevent repeat display of the same product sets

Behavioral data collected per interaction:

• Product views: Product ID, category, price point, brand — recorded on every product detail page load
• Search queries: Search terms entered on-site, mapped to categories browsed
• Cart additions and removals: Product IDs, quantities, and order values — used to refine real-time recommendations
• Purchase events: Complete order data (product IDs, quantities, revenue) used to update the visitor's purchase history profile
• Exit-intent signals: Cursor movement toward browser chrome triggers behavioral popup evaluation

Script behavior:

• On page load, transmits current page context (page type, product category, cart contents) to Nosto's API at api.nosto.com
• Receives personalized recommendation payloads and renders them into configured placement slots on the page
• Evaluates behavioral popup rules (exit intent, time on page, cart value thresholds) and displays overlays accordingly
• Sends behavioral events to Nosto's servers for real-time profile updates and model training

IAB TCF purposes: Purpose 1 (Store and/or access information on a device), Purpose 3 (Create a personalised ads profile), Purpose 4 (Select personalised ads), Purpose 5 (Create a personalised content profile), Purpose 6 (Select personalised content) — relevant for personalization use cases.

Consent & Compliance

Nosto combines functional and marketing processing. The product recommendation widgets provide functional ecommerce value, but they are powered by persistent behavioral profiling that tracks individual visitors across multiple sessions. Under GDPR and ePrivacy, the persistent visitor identifier cookie (2c.cId) and behavioral profiling require consent — these are non-essential cookies used for personalization and potentially marketing optimization.

Under CCPA/CPRA, behavioral profiling for personalized product recommendations and exit-intent marketing popups may qualify as "sharing" of personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising, requiring opt-out rights. Nosto is headquartered in Helsinki with US operations and relies on SCCs for EU-US data transfers.

Should You Block This Without Consent?

Conditional. Nosto provides functional value through product recommendations but also performs persistent behavioral profiling. Basic recommendation display driven by current-session context only may be considered functional. However, cross-session profiling via the persistent visitor ID cookie and behavioral popup targeting require consent. If possible, load Nosto in a consent-gated mode — or suppress the persistent identifier — until marketing consent is granted.