Privacy Policy

Who are we?

Better Sleep Guide ("we", "us") is an editorial website at bettersleepguide.co.uk operated from the United Kingdom. We are the data controller for any personal data you provide while using the site.

For questions about this policy, use the contact form or email hello@bettersleepguide.co.uk.

What data do we collect?

Visiting the site does not require an account, email signup or any personal details. The information we do collect is limited to:

• Anonymous traffic measurement (page views, referrer, country, device class) via Google Analytics 4, only after you accept analytics in the cookie banner.
• Tag-management state via Google Tag Manager - the loader runs on every page, but downstream tags (analytics, advertising) fire only with the matching consent.
• Server logs retained by Cloudflare for security and abuse prevention (IP, request URL, timestamp, user agent) under Cloudflare's own privacy policy.

If you use our contact form or email us, we receive your name, email address and message, and use them only in connection with your message. We do not run a mailing list, e-commerce store or user-account system, so we collect no payment data and no profile information.

How do we use cookies?

The site operates under Google Consent Mode v2. On your first visit you'll see a cookie banner where you can:

• Accept all (essential + analytics)
• Reject non-essential (essential only)
• Customize (toggle analytics on/off)

Denied is the default for analytics, advertising, ad personalisation and personalisation storage until you give consent. Functionality and security cookies are always granted (they are strictly necessary for the site to work).

You can change your choice at any time via the "Cookie preferences" link in the footer.

If your browser sends Do Not Track (DNT), we respect it and do not load analytics regardless of the banner state.

Which cookies and storage items does the site use?

Each cookie or browser-storage item the site sets or reads, with its purpose, who sets it and how long it lasts:

Strictly necessary or set at your request (no consent needed):

• csg_consent_v1 (browser local storage) - remembers your cookie-banner choice (analytics on or off) so you are not asked on every page. Set by: us (first party). Duration: kept until you clear your browser storage or change your choice; when our cookie categories change we use a new name and ask you again.
• r2-consent (browser local storage) - an older name for the same choice. Set by: us (first party). Duration: read once and deleted, so visitors who chose before we renamed it are not asked twice.
• r2-theme (browser local storage, with an older name theme read if present) - remembers whether you switched the site to light or dark mode. Set by: us (first party), only when you use the theme switch. Duration: until you clear your browser storage.
• r2-geo (browser session storage) - holds your two-letter country code, looked up from Cloudflare, so product pages show the Amazon store and prices for your country. Set by: us (first party), using Cloudflare. Duration: deleted when you close the browser tab.
• Cloudflare Turnstile (contact form only) - checks that the form is not being used by a bot. It runs in a frame served from challenges.cloudflare.com and sets no cookie on our domain. Set by: Cloudflare, Inc. Duration: the check lasts only for that form submission.

Analytics (only after you accept analytics):

• _ga (cookie) - distinguishes one visitor from another so Google Analytics 4 can count visits without identifying you. Set by: Google LLC (Google Analytics 4, loaded through Google Tag Manager). Duration: 2 years from your last visit.
• _ga_0NH66ZQSYN (cookie) - keeps the state of your current visit (session) for our Google Analytics 4 property. Set by: Google LLC (Google Analytics 4). Duration: 2 years from your last visit.

Google Tag Manager itself sets no cookie: it only loads the tags above, and they wait for your consent.

We set no advertising cookies. When you follow an affiliate link, the retailer (for example Amazon) may set its own cookies on its own website; those are listed in that retailer's cookie notice, not here.

How do affiliate links work?

Some outbound links to retailers are affiliate links - we may earn a commission when you click through and buy. The destination retailer may set cookies on their domain; we have no control over those. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. See the affiliate disclosure for our editorial position on affiliate revenue.

We do not currently run programmatic display advertising on the site. If this changes, this policy will be updated and you'll be re-prompted for advertising consent.

How do we use your information?

Aggregate, anonymous traffic data is used solely to:

• Understand which guides are useful (and which need rewriting)
• Detect technical errors and broken pages
• Inform editorial priorities (which sleep-environment problems and product categories are under-served)

We do not sell personal data, share it with brokers, or use it for any kind of advertising profile.

What is our lawful basis for each use?

UK GDPR requires us to name a lawful basis for every purpose we process personal data for. Ours are:

• Analytics (Google Analytics 4 via Google Tag Manager) - to measure which guides are read and how visitors reach them. Lawful basis: consent (Article 6(1)(a) UK GDPR, and regulation 6 PECR for the cookies involved). Nothing is collected until you accept analytics in the cookie banner, and you can withdraw consent at any time through the "Cookie preferences" link in the footer.
• Server logs (Cloudflare) - IP address, request URL, timestamp and user agent, processed to keep the site secure, available and free of abuse. Lawful basis: legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f)) - our legitimate interest is protecting the site and its visitors from attacks, fraud and misuse, and diagnosing technical faults.
• Contact-form messages and emails (Amazon SES, Cloudflare Turnstile) - your name, email address and message, processed to read and reply to what you sent us, and the Turnstile check that the form is not being used by a bot. Lawful basis: legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f)) - our legitimate interest is answering the enquiries people send us and keeping the form free of spam.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, you have the right to object to that processing at any time (see "Your rights under UK GDPR" below).

How long do we keep your data?

We keep personal data only for as long as the purpose it was collected for needs it:

• Analytics (Google Analytics 4) - event-level and user-level data is kept for 14 months from your last visit (the retention period set on our Google Analytics property, reset if you return), then deleted automatically by Google. Aggregated reports that identify no one may be kept longer.
• Server logs (Cloudflare) - we keep no copy of our own. Cloudflare processes request data (IP address, request URL, timestamp, user agent) for security and abuse prevention and keeps it only for the short period its own privacy policy sets for that purpose.
• Contact-form messages and emails - the form does not store your message on the website; it is delivered as an email to our inbox. We keep it for as long as we need to deal with your enquiry and any follow-up about it, and then delete it. You can ask us to delete it sooner through the contact form or by emailing hello@bettersleepguide.co.uk. The Cloudflare Turnstile check on the form keeps nothing on our side.
• Affiliate clicks - when you follow an affiliate link, the retailer (for example Amazon) keeps its own click and purchase records for the period its own privacy notice states; we receive only anonymous commission reports.

Your rights under UK GDPR

You have the right to:

• Be informed about how your data is used (this page)
• Access any personal data we hold about you
• Have inaccurate data corrected
• Have data erased ("right to be forgotten")
• Restrict processing
• Object to processing (see "Your right to object" below)
• Withdraw consent at any time

Your right to object

You have the right to object, at any time, to our processing of your personal data where we rely on legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f)) - that is, our Cloudflare server logs and our handling of contact-form messages and emails. This right is separate from the right to restrict processing. To object, use the contact form or email hello@bettersleepguide.co.uk and tell us which processing you object to. We will then stop that processing unless we can show compelling legitimate grounds that override your interests, rights and freedoms, or the processing is needed to establish, exercise or defend legal claims. We do not use your personal data for direct marketing; if we ever did, you could object to it at any time and we would stop.

Given we collect no directly identifying personal data, in practice most of these rights are satisfied by withdrawing analytics consent in the cookie banner.

How to complain to us

If you're unhappy with how we've handled your personal data, please complain to us first: use the contact form or email hello@bettersleepguide.co.uk, telling us what happened and what you'd like us to do. We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days of receiving it, look into it without undue delay, and tell you the outcome.

If you're not satisfied with our response, or you'd rather not complain to us first, you can complain to the Information Commission, the UK's data protection regulator (it replaced the Information Commissioner's Office on 30 September 2026), at ico.org.uk.

Which third parties do we work with?

The site uses:

• Cloudflare - hosting, DNS and DDoS protection
• Google Analytics 4 - anonymous traffic measurement (with consent)
• Google Tag Manager - tag orchestration
• Google Search Console - indexability monitoring (server-side only, no user-side cookies)
• Amazon Associates - affiliate links to Amazon UK product listings; live price display uses Amazon's product data service
• Amazon Web Services (Amazon SES) - delivers messages sent through the contact form (AWS Europe (Ireland) region)
• Cloudflare Turnstile - bot protection on the contact form

Each third party has its own privacy policy linked from its respective site.

Is your data transferred outside the UK?

Some of the providers above process personal data outside the United Kingdom, mainly in the United States:

• Google (Google LLC - Google Analytics 4, Google Tag Manager, Google Search Console) - analytics data, collected only with your consent, may be processed in the US.
• Cloudflare (Cloudflare, Inc. - hosting, server logs, Turnstile) - request data, including IP addresses, may be processed in the US and at Cloudflare's data centres worldwide.
• Amazon (Amazon.com, Inc. and Amazon Web Services, Inc. - Amazon Associates, Amazon SES) - contact-form messages are delivered from the AWS Europe (Ireland) region, which the UK recognises as adequate, but Amazon may access or process them from the US; affiliate click data is handled by Amazon under its own privacy notice.

Safeguards. Where these companies are certified under the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (the "UK-US data bridge"), transfers to them rely on the UK's adequacy regulations for that bridge. Any transfer not covered by the data bridge is made under the ICO's International Data Transfer Agreement (IDTA) or the International Data Transfer Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, which each provider includes in its data processing terms.

You can ask for a copy of the safeguards that apply to a transfer through the contact form or by emailing hello@bettersleepguide.co.uk.

How will we notify you about changes?

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be flagged in the footer with the updated date. Continuing to use the site after an update constitutes acceptance of the revised terms.

How can you contact us?

For privacy questions, use the contact form or email hello@bettersleepguide.co.uk.