At Axeptio Connect Amsterdam, we met with Elwin Kuipers, Web Developer at Virtuele Helden, a Dutch agency specializing in personal branding.
In this interview (also available as a video below), he looks back at the digital challenges the agency is facing in 2026, its transition from CookieCode to Axeptio, and the tangible benefits seen since rolling out the new CMP.
A Digital Ecosystem Built Around Personal Branding
Virtuele Helden is an agency specialising in the development of personal branding for both individuals, such as executives and entrepreneurs, and businesses. In their view, a brand’s visibility now depends to a large extent on the visibility of the people behind it.
Their offering is built around three complementary pillars. First, personal branding itself, through one-to-one coaching and team training sessions designed to help people shape their voice and clarify their positioning. Second, a strong content marketing focus, particularly on LinkedIn, which plays a central role in their strategy. And third, a web pillar centred on personal-branding-focused WordPress websites, along with related services such as website maintenance, hosting and, of course, consent management with Axeptio.
Within this ecosystem, content is part of a broader strategic framework, where every message needs to align with an editorial strategy, a defined audience and clear business goals. That approach naturally leads the agency to work more and more on increasingly strategic data and privacy issues.
“One of our key challenges for 2026 is integrating AI tools into marketing workflows. Their use has to remain compatible with data protection requirements. On top of that, there are regulatory and geopolitical issues to consider. Data storage, particularly between Europe and the United States, is becoming a real topic for agencies like Virtuele Helden, which need to provide clients with solutions that are both efficient and compliant.” — Elwin Kuipers, Web Developer at Virtuele Helden
From CookieCode to Axeptio: a Transition that Highlighted the Quality of Axeptio’s Support
Before moving to Axeptio, Virtuele Helden used CookieCode to manage consent across its clients’ websites, a solution the team was already familiar with, especially because of its simplicity.
CookieCode’s acquisition by Axeptio gave the agency access to a more premium tool with new features. The challenge was to quickly understand how the new solution worked and be able to implement it smoothly across the various client projects.
“I want to emphasize how important the support was during this transition phase. Being able to ask questions, get quick answers and be guided through the technical implementation made it possible to roll out the new cookie banner easily.” — Elwin Kuipers, Web Developer at Virtuele Helden
This support, provided by Gordon and the Customer Success team, made it easier to adopt the tool while reducing the friction risks that usually come with switching solutions.
Personalization, Analytics and User Experience: Axeptio’s Key Strengths
Once the transition was complete, several strengths stood out in day-to-day use of the solution. The first is personalization.
“For an agency whose core business is built around personal branding, the ability to tailor the look and feel of cookie banners to a client’s visual identity or content strategy is a real strategic advantage.” — Elwin Kuipers, Web Developer at Virtuele Helden
To assess the performance of its design changes, the agency can rely on Axeptio’s analytics features: interaction rate, consent rate, opt-in rate, immediate bounce rate and more. These KPIs create the foundation for a continuous optimisation approach.
By working on both visual consistency and usage analysis, Virtuele Helden is able to design cookie banners that feel more naturally integrated into the visitor journey. In a context where consent management is often seen as a constraint, this approach helps reposition it as a fully-fledged part of the user experience.
Are you an agency looking for support with your customized consent management practices?
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