Version July 15, 2026 - 26.7.0

EMEA - July 15, 2026

AMER - July 21, 2026

JAPAN - July 22, 2026

APAC - July 22, 2026

Open Pixel Tracking Consent Management – compliance to new French Privacy Laws

Automatically available for EMEA customers, and available on request for customers outside EMEA

Background

The CNIL (Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés) is France’s data protection authority and enforces privacy laws such as GDPR and ePrivacy. In April 2026, the CNIL published updated guidance that clarifies expectations around consent, transparency, and tracking in email communications sent to individuals in France. These updates will impact organizations that rely on email engagement tracking or related analytics when marketing to French recipients.

Email open tracking is commonly implemented using a tracking pixel embedded in email content. When a recipient opens an email, the tracking pixel loads and sends information back to the platform, enabling marketers to measure engagement and analyze campaign performance.

Recent guidance on April 2026, from the French data protection authority ((Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés (CNIL)) states that individual-level email open tracking requires consent unless the tracking is fully anonymous. Organizations that send email to audiences in regions where consent is required must ensure that open tracking is only performed when appropriate consent has been obtained.

Solution

To help customers manage these requirements, Cheetah Digital now provides a mechanism to store and apply email open tracking consent preferences at the sender profile level.

Cheetah Digital introduces Open Pixel Tracking Consent Management, a feature that enables marketers to control email open pixel tracking based on a recipient's consent status.

When the feature is enabled on a Sender Profile:

• A new field called Open Pixel Tracking Consent is added to the associated audience tables
• Consent preferences can be collected and managed through existing data collection processes, including web forms, API integrations, imports, and preference centers
• Consent values are automatically applied to all campaigns that use the Sender Profile

What it looks like in Cheetah Digital by Zeta

A new option called Open Pixel Tracking Consent is available within Settings > Campaign Settings > Sender Profiles.

After activating the option:

• The Open Pixel Tracking Consent switch appears within the Sender Profile configuration
• A new audience field called Open Pixel Tracking Consent is created
• The consent field can be mapped through imports, APIs, web forms, and other audience management tools
• Campaigns automatically honor the consent value stored for each recipient

For recipients who withdrawal consent to be tracked, Cheetah Digital switches to anonymous tracking, which:

• Remove recipient-level identifiers from the tracking pixel
• Prevents collection of individual open activities
• Continues to provide aggregate campaign reporting

Important notes

• Click tracking is not affected by this feature
• Customers remain responsible for ensuring compliance with applicable privacy and data protection regulations
• Currently applies to France only, with expansion to other European markets expected

Consent collection support

When the feature enabled, the tools used to collect audience consent are updated to support the Open Pixel Tracking Consent field. This includes:

• Web Forms
• API Posts
• Data Imports

You can begin collecting and storing consent preferences using these tools.

Consent enforcement for email open tracking

Cheetah Digital begins applying the Open Pixel Tracking Consent value when determining email open tracking behavior in campaigns that use Sender Profiles with the feature enabled.

• Recipients with consent continue to receive standard open pixel tracking
• Recipients who withdrew consent receive anonymous tracking only
• Recipients with unknown consent - will receive anonymous tracking only
• No aggregate level campaign metrics at this time
• Coming Soon: Aggregate level campaign metrics on opens.

Making a campaign exempt from Open Pixel Tracking Consent

You can now designate a campaign as exempt from Open Pixel Tracking Consent when the campaign uses a Sender Profile with Open Pixel Consent activated. To do this,from More Info within the campaign, select Exempt from Open Pixel Tracking Consent Requirement.

When this option is enabled, email opens are tracked regardless of the recipient's consent status. This enhancement supports organizations with approved use cases where open pixel tracking is permitted without recipient consent.

Open Pixel Tracking for Advanced Event Trigger Campaigns

For some Advanced Event Trigger (AET) campaigns, recipient-level consent data may not be available to determine Open Pixel Tracking Consent.

To address this, a new Turn Off Open Pixel Tracking option is now available when configuring AET campaigns, when Open Pixel Tracking Consent is enabled in the Sender Profile.

Refer to the FAQ section here for more information.

Refer to the User guide for step-by-step implementation instructions.

Enhancements to RCS

Available to all customers

Background

As we roll out RCS features, we have been enhancing RCS functionality and usability to improve user experience and operational stability.

Solution

The following RCS enhancements are now available:

• MP4 video support

  • MP4 video can now be included in your Rich RCS campaigns.

   

• Stop capability for RCS Conversational campaign proofs

  • When testing RCS conversational campaigns using proofs, the proofing process can be ended once it entered a Waiting for Responses or Proofing state.

  • Important: The proofing process must be stopped or cancelled before launching a campaign.

What it looks like in Cheetah Digital by Zeta

• MP4 video support

  • You can now include MP4 videos in your Rich RCS campaigns. Add a video by selecting Search Media to choose from your hosted media, entering a media URL directly, or uploading a new video using Upload New Media, which adds the video to your hosted media library.

   

• Stop capability for RCS Conversational campaign proofs

  • You can now manually stop or cancel proofing for RCS reply campaigns directly from the campaign Review tab. Use Cancel while the proof is in progress. Use Stop when the campaign is waiting for responses (for example, after sending a reply-triggered message. Once stopped or cancelled, the campaign status resets to Draft. This ensures that proofing is fully completed before moving forward with campaign launch.

For more information on RCS and the use cases, refer RCS User Guide.

See Cheetah Digital Upcoming Release Schedule for the platform release.

See System Maintenance for details on the next system maintenance window.

The status page provides you with regular updates regarding the status of the Cheetah Digital by Zeta platform in the event of a major system incident in your region. In this article we’ll explain the information you will see and how to subscribe to the Cheetah Digital by Zeta notification system to receive regular updates on the platform status, which we highly recommend to all users.

See Platform status page for current Cheetah Digital platform status.

See Platform Status documentation for instructions on signing up for notifications.