This page explains how Debt Guardians uses cookies and similar technologies on debtguardians.co.uk, and how we use them to measure and show our adverts. It forms part of our Privacy Policy.
Debt Guardians is a trading style of Financial Guardian (UK) Ltd, registered in England and Wales (company number 07906605), Coppull Business Centre, Mill Lane, Chorley, PR7 5BW. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (registration number Z318074X).
Your choices
When you first visit our website, we ask whether you’re happy for us to use analytics and advertising cookies. These are switched off until you say yes. Essential cookies, which the website needs to work, are always on.
You can change your mind at any time: [cookie_settings_link text=”change your cookie settings”]. If you withdraw consent, we delete the analytics and advertising cookies our website has set.
You can also block or delete cookies in your browser settings. If you block essential cookies, parts of the site, such as our enquiry form, may not work properly.
What are cookies?
Cookies are small text files that a website saves on your device. They let the site remember things, such as your cookie choice or the answers you gave on our enquiry form. Some are deleted when you close your browser; others stay for a set time. We also use your browser’s temporary “session storage” for the same purposes as the advertising cookies below, and only with your consent.
Cookies set by our own website are called first-party cookies. Cookies set by another company, such as Google, are called third-party cookies.
Essential cookies
These are needed for the website to work, so they don’t need your consent.
| Cookie | Set by | What it does | How long it lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
| dg_consent | Debt Guardians | Remembers your cookie choices, so we don’t ask you on every page. It holds your choice, a random ID and the date. It contains nothing that identifies you. | 6 months |
| vt_forename, vt_lead_id, vt_leadtype, vt_debt, vt_debttype, vt_debtstatus, vt_disposable, vt_residential, vt_income_source, vt_conversion_value, cbt | Debt Guardians | Set only when you send an enquiry. They let our thank-you page greet you by name and show the right next steps for your enquiry. | 1 day |
| nitroCachedPage | Debt Guardians (NitroPack) | Helps our website load quickly by serving saved copies of pages. | When you close your browser |
Analytics cookies (only with your consent)
We use Google Analytics to understand how people use our website, such as which pages are visited and where visitors come from, so we can improve it. Google Analytics gives us reports about visitors in general, not about you personally.
| Cookie | Set by | What it does | How long it lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
| _ga | Google Analytics | Tells visits from the same browser apart, using a random ID. | 2 years |
| _ga_NPESPC346X | Google Analytics | Keeps track of your current visit. | 2 years |
Advertising cookies (only with your consent)
We advertise on Google and Facebook/Instagram. These cookies tell us which adverts led people to contact us. This helps us to spend our advertising budget on the adverts that reach people who need our help, and to show our adverts to people who have visited our website.
| Cookie | Set by | What it does | How long it lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
| _gcl_au, _gcl_aw, _gcl_gb | Google Ads | Records that you came from one of our Google adverts, so Google can tell us whether the advert led to an enquiry. | 90 days |
| _fbp, _fbc | Meta (Facebook) | Records visits and enquiries from our Facebook and Instagram adverts, so Meta can measure them and show our adverts to people likely to find them useful. | 90 days |
| vt_gclid, gclid, vt_gbraid, vt_wbraid | Debt Guardians | The reference number Google adds to a link when you click one of our adverts. | 90 days |
| vt_fbclid | Debt Guardians | The reference number Facebook or Instagram adds to a link when you click one of our adverts. | 90 days |
| msclkid | Debt Guardians | The reference number Microsoft Advertising (Bing) adds to a link when you click one of our adverts. | 90 days |
| vt_landing | Debt Guardians | The first page you visited after clicking an advert. | 90 days |
| vt_utm_source, vt_utm_medium, vt_utm_campaign, vt_utm_term, vt_utm_content | Debt Guardians | The name of the advert, email or website that sent you to us. | 30 days |
| vt_source, vt_camp, vt_adgroup, vt_keyword, vt_device, vt_network, vt_placement, vt_position, vt_match_type, vt_creative | Debt Guardians | Details of the advert you clicked, such as the search words it appeared for. | 1 day |
| vt_phone, vt_email | Debt Guardians | Set only when you send an enquiry. Lets Google match your enquiry to the advert you clicked (see “Matching enquiries to adverts” below). | 1 day |
Personalised advertising
With your consent, Google and Meta may use the cookies above to:
- measure how many people contacted us after seeing or clicking one of our adverts;
- show our adverts to people who have visited our website before (“remarketing”);
- show our adverts to people with similar interests to our visitors.
Google and Meta may combine this with information they already hold about you, for example if you’re signed in to a Google, Facebook or Instagram account. How they do this is explained in Google’s privacy information for advertisers and Meta’s Privacy Policy.
We never share the details of your debts, your income or your circumstances with Google, Meta or any other advertiser, and we don’t use them to choose who sees our adverts. When you send an enquiry, we tell Google that an enquiry has happened. We also give it a value based on the approximate amount of debt you selected, so that we can tell which adverts bring the enquiries we’re most likely to be able to help with.
Matching enquiries to adverts
If you have agreed to advertising cookies and you send an enquiry, we use Google’s “enhanced conversions” feature. Your phone number and email address are converted into a scrambled code (a “hash”) on our website before they’re sent to Google. Google uses this code only to match your enquiry to an advert you saw or clicked, if you have a Google account. It doesn’t use it to show you adverts or share it with other advertisers.
We also keep the advert reference numbers above with your enquiry in our customer records. We may use them to tell Google or Meta that an enquiry from one of their adverts went on to become a customer. This is how we measure which adverts genuinely help people.
If you don’t consent
If you choose “Reject all” or don’t make a choice, no analytics or advertising cookies are set and nothing is sent to Meta. We use Google’s “Consent Mode”, which tells Google’s tags that you haven’t consented. They may still send Google basic information without cookies, such as that a page was viewed or an enquiry was made, along with the type of device and browser. Google uses this only to estimate the total number of enquiries from our adverts, without identifying you. If you arrived from a Google advert, its reference number may be carried in the web address between pages for the same purpose.
If you send an enquiry without making a choice, we still record which advert or website you came from with your enquiry, as described in our Privacy Policy. We don’t save it in a cookie.
Other services on our website
If you choose to contact us by Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp, the link takes you to their app or website, where their own privacy policies apply.
Sending information outside the UK
Google and Meta may process information in the United States and other countries. Where they do, it is protected by the safeguards UK data protection law requires, such as the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework or contracts approved by the ICO.
Our record of your choice
To show that we have your consent, we keep a record of each choice made on our website: the choice, the random ID from the dg_consent cookie, the page and the date. It doesn’t include your IP address or anything that identifies you. We keep these records for 2 years.
Other ways to control advertising
- Google: My Ad Center, and the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on.
- Facebook and Instagram: Ad preferences.
- Many advertising companies: Your Online Choices.
Your rights and contacting us
You have rights over your personal data, including the right to see it, correct it, have it deleted and object to its use for marketing. Our Privacy Policy explains these rights and how to contact our Compliance Department. You can also call us on 01257 793600.
If you’re unhappy with how we’ve used your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.
Changes to this page
If we start using new kinds of cookies or advertising, we’ll update this page and ask for your consent again. This page was last updated on 2 November 2026.
