The text on a cookie banner is doing a legal job with about forty words. It has to say what is stored, by whom and for what, before the visitor decides, in language they will actually read. Most banner text fails not because it is badly written but because it was written to reassure rather than to inform, and reassurance is the one thing this particular paragraph is not for.
Say what, who and why, in that order
Start with what is stored, name who else receives it, and give the purpose as a purpose rather than as a benefit. We use cookies to improve your experience fails all three: it does not say what is stored, it hides the third parties entirely, and improve your experience is a benefit that could describe any purpose including ones the visitor would refuse. A sentence like we store analytics and advertising identifiers, and share them with our analytics and advertising providers, so we can measure traffic and target ads does all three jobs in one line and is not longer.
Name the parties, not just the categories
The visitor is deciding whether a named company may receive an identifier for them. Categories alone do not support that decision. You do not have to list every vendor in the banner itself, but the banner should say that a list exists, where it is, and roughly what kind of company is on it. A link labelled which companies receive this is materially stronger than one labelled learn more, and the difference costs nothing.
The sentences to delete
By continuing to browse you agree. This is not consent and European authorities have said so repeatedly. We value your privacy as the opening line, which tells the visitor nothing and uses their attention on a claim. We use cookies to give you the best possible experience, which is a marketing sentence in a disclosure. And any sentence implying the visitor must accept to use the site, unless you have genuinely built a compliant alternative, because implying it is coercive even when the reject button exists.
Write the category descriptions for your site
The descriptions shipped with a consent tool describe a generic site. Yours has a specific list of tags, and the description should match it. If your only analytics is a single tool, say which. If your advertising category exists because of one retargeting pixel from a campaign, say that. Specific descriptions are shorter, more honest, and much easier to keep true, because when the tag goes away the sentence obviously has to change.
Keep a version of the text with each consent
Banner text changes. When it does, every consent collected under the old words was a decision about something slightly different, and the record has to be able to say which words were on screen. Storing a version identifier beside each decision costs one field and is the difference between a record that answers a question in a year and one that merely proves a click happened.
Questions people ask about cookie text
How long should the banner text be?
Short enough to be read, long enough to say what, who and why. Around forty to sixty words in the first view, with the detail one click away, is where most usable banners land.
Can I use my consent tool's default text?
As a starting structure, yes. As shipped it describes a generic site, so the category descriptions will be wrong about yours in ways that are easy to demonstrate.
Should the text differ by region?
If the rule differs by region, yes. A California opt-out and a European opt-in are different propositions and one sentence cannot honestly describe both.
Does the text need a link to the cookie policy?
Yes, and the link text should say what is on the other side. Learn more is weaker than which cookies we set and who reads them.
Who should write it?
Whoever knows what the tags actually do. Legal review after that is useful; legal drafting before the tag list exists produces text about a hypothetical site.