1. Introduction

Welcome to HOC Digital Solutions. We are a UK-based PPC Agency offering online marketing services to our clients. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you visit our website, www.hocdigitalsolutions.co.uk, and use our services. We are committed to protecting and preserving the privacy of our visitors when visiting our site or communicating electronically with us.

2. Company Information

HOC Digital Solutions
1 Fife Street, Barrowford, BB9 6DD, England
Email: [email protected]

3. Types of Information We May Collect From You

We may collect, store, and use the following kinds of personal information about individuals who visit and use our website:

Information You Supply to Us: You may supply us with information about you by filling in forms on our website. This includes information you provide when you submit a contact/enquiry form or email. The information you give us may include your name, title, job title, address, email address, and phone number.

Information Our Website Automatically Collects About You: With regard to each of your visits to our website, we may automatically collect information including the following:

  • Technical information, including a truncated and anonymised version of your Internet protocol (IP) address, browser type and version, operating system, and platform.
  • Information about your visit, including what pages you visit, how long you are on the site, how you got to the site (including date and time); page response times, length of visit, what you click on, documents downloaded, and download errors.

4. Cookies and Similar Technologies

We use a small number of cookies and similar technologies. They fall into three groups, and they are not all treated the same way:

  • Strictly necessary: needed to deliver the site and keep it secure, including spam protection on our forms and remembering your cookie choice. These are always active.
  • Site measurement: counting visits and page views so we can see which pages are useful and improve the site. This is on by default, and you can switch it off at any time in Cookie settings.
  • Advertising: cookies used for advertising and remarketing. These stay off unless you switch them on.

Section 10 lists the specific cookies in each group. Section 11 explains the legal basis we rely on.

5. How We May Use the Information We Collect

Information You Supply to Us: We will use this information to respond to your enquiry and to provide you with the information or services you have asked us for.

Information We Automatically Collect About You: We will use this information to:

  • Count visits and page views, and understand which pages and sources bring people to the site.
  • Improve the site, so that content is presented in the most effective way.
  • Administer the site, including troubleshooting and keeping it secure.

We use Google Analytics 4, loaded through Google Tag Manager, to measure how the site is used. Google Analytics sets a first-party cookie to recognise a returning browser, so our visit and page-view figures are more than a rough count. We do not use it to build advertising audiences from this website, and advertising personalisation signals are switched off unless you consent to them. Google processes this data on our behalf and also for its own purposes as set out in Google's privacy policy.

We do not use this information to try to identify you as an individual, and we do not combine it with the details you send us through a form.

6. Disclosure of Your Information

Any information you provide to us will either be emailed directly to us or may be stored on a secure server in the UK or the Republic of Ireland. We do not rent or sell personal information about you. We do use a small number of service providers who process data on our behalf in order to run the site and our business: Cloudflare (hosting and security), Google (Analytics, Tag Manager and Ads) and HubSpot (CRM). Some of these providers process data outside the UK, under the safeguards set out in their own terms. We will use all reasonable efforts to ensure that your personal data is not disclosed to regional/national institutions and authorities unless required by law or other regulations.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

7. Third Party Links

Our site may, from time to time, contain links to and from third-party websites. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.

8. Your Rights – Access to Your Personal Data

You have the right to ensure that your personal data is being processed lawfully ("Subject Access Right"). Your subject access right can be exercised in accordance with data protection laws and regulations. Any subject access request must be made in writing to the address at the bottom of the policy. We will provide your personal data to you within the statutory time frames. To enable us to trace any of your personal data that we may be holding, we may need to request further information from you. If you have a complaint about how we have used your information, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

9. What Are Cookies

Cookies are small files saved to your device by the sites you visit. They are widely used to make sites work, to remember your preferences, and to count visitors. Some are set by us, and some are set by the services we use. You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, though blocking the strictly necessary ones will stop parts of this site working — our contact forms in particular.

Alongside cookies we store one item in your browser's local storage, consent_preferences, which records the choice you make about cookies so we do not have to ask again.

10. The Cookies This Site Uses

Strictly necessary

  • Cloudflare — our hosting and security provider sets __cf_bm and, where a security check is needed, cf_clearance, to tell real visitors from bots. Short-lived.
  • Cloudflare Turnstile — protects our contact, audit and white-label forms from spam. It may store a short-lived token in your browser to confirm the check has passed.
  • Your cookie choice — consent_preferences in local storage, so your setting sticks between visits.

Site measurement — on by default, and you can switch it off

  • Google Analytics 4 — _ga and _ga_<id>, set as first-party cookies and kept for up to two years. They let us count visits and page views, and tell a returning browser from a new one. We use the result to decide what to write and what to fix.

Google Tag Manager itself stores nothing on your device; it is the container that loads the tags above.

Advertising — off unless you switch it on

  • Google Ads — _gcl_au and related _gcl_* cookies, used to measure ad conversions and for remarketing. Off by default, and only ever set if you turn them on in Cookie settings below.

HubSpot

We use HubSpot as our CRM, and its tracking code sets hubspotutk, __hstc, __hssc and __hssrc. These identify your browser so that, if you later send us an enquiry, we can see how you found us. Because these cookies identify you rather than just count you, they sit outside the measurement exception described below.

Site measurement runs without asking you first. We rely on the exception for statistical purposes in paragraph 5 of Schedule A1 to the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, inserted by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 and in force from 5 February 2026. It allows a website to collect information about how it is used, for the purpose of improving it, provided we tell you clearly and give you a free and simple way to object. This is that way, and it is available on every page through the Cookie Settings link in the footer. The notice at the bottom of the page when you first arrive is there to tell you measurement is running; dismissing it is not consent to anything, and it sets no cookies.

Advertising cookies are not covered by that exception and are only ever set with your consent. Where the measurement data counts as personal data under the UK GDPR, our lawful basis is our legitimate interest in understanding and improving our own website.

12. Changes to Our Privacy Policy

Any changes we may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy.

13. Contact Us

If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at:
Email: [email protected]
Mail: HOC Digital Solutions, 1 Fife Street, Barrowford, BB9 6DD, England