About consent mode

This article is for Google tag users that send data to Google and want to send consent signals.

Consent mode lets you communicate your users’ cookie or app identifier consent status to Google. Tags adjust their behavior and respect users’ choices.

Consent mode does not provide a consent banner or widget. Rather, consent mode interacts with your banner to obtain visitor consent. Learn more in Manage user consent.

Consent mode receives your users' consent choices from your cookie banner or widget and dynamically adapts the behavior of Analytics, Ads, and third-party tags that create or read cookies.

How consent mode works

Note: Google is committed to protecting the confidentiality and security of your data. We'll keep your data confidential and secure using the same industry-leading standards we use to protect our own users’ data. We only report aggregated conversions. You can read more about how we use your consent mode data.

When you enable consent mode, Google measurement products ensure that a visitor’s consent mode state is preserved across the pages they visit.

You can implement consent mode on your website or app in either of two ways: basic or advanced.

Basic consent mode

When you implement consent mode in its basic version, you prevent Google tags from loading until a user interacts with a consent banner. This setup transmits no data to Google prior to user interaction with the consent banner. When the user grants consent, Google tags load and execute the consent mode APIs. The tags send the consent states to Google in the following order:

Send default consent states.
Send updated consent states.

However, when the user doesn’t consent, no data is transferred to Google at all – not even the consent status. Google tags are completely blocked from firing. Consent mode's conversion modeling in Ads is then based on a general model.

Advanced consent mode

When you implement consent mode in its advanced version, Google tags load when a user opens the website or app. The tags load the consent mode API and do the following:

Set default consent states. By default, consent will be denied, unless you set your own defaults.
While consent is denied, the Google tags send cookieless pings.
Wait for user interaction with the banner and update consent states.
Only when a user grants consent to data collection, Google tags send the full measurement data. Learn more about tag behavior.

This implementation enables improved modeling compared to the Basic one as it provides an advertiser-specific model as opposed to a general model.

Overview

Feature	Basic consent mode	Advanced consent mode
Tag loading	Blocked until user interaction with a consent banner.	Loads with defaults set to denied, unless configured otherwise.
Data transmission	No data is sent before a user consents - not even the default consent status.	When consent is denied, consent state and cookieless pings are sent. When consent is granted, cookies are written and all measurement data is sent.
Consent states	Set after user interaction.	Defaults set to denied, unless configured otherwise; updates based on user choice.
Tag behavior after user interaction	Loads and executes consent mode APIs only when a user grants consent.	Adjusts tag behavior based on user consent choice.
Conversion modeling	General model (less detailed modeling).	Advertiser-specific model (more detailed modeling).

Consent mode pings

When visitors grant consent, the associated tags will function normally.

When visitors deny consent, consent-aware tags do not store cookies. Instead, tags communicate consent state and user activity by sending the following types of cookieless pings, or signals, to the Google server:

Consent state pings for Google Ads and Floodlight tags: Communicate the default consent state that you have configured and the updated state when the visitor grants or denies consent for each consent type such as ad_storage and analytics_storage. Consent state pings are sent from each page the user visits where consent mode is enabled, and are also triggered for some tags if the consent state changes from denied to granted. For example, if a visitor opts in from a consent dialog.
Conversion pings: Indicate that a conversion has occurred.
Google Analytics pings: Sent from each page of a website where Google Analytics is implemented on load and when events are logged.

In all cases, pings may include:

Functional information (such as headers added passively by the browser):
- Timestamp
- User agent (web only)
- Referrer
Aggregate/non-identifying information:
- An indication for whether or not the current page or a prior page in the user's navigation on the site included ad-click information in the URL (e.g., GCLID / DCLID)
- Boolean information about the consent state
- Random number generated on each page load
- Information about the consent platform used by the site owner (e.g., Developer ID)

Consent mode modeling

To mitigate any data collection gaps, Google products use these pings to model your metrics for your measurement solutions. In order to protect user privacy, your tags need to meet a certain data collection threshold. You can find more information about what is modeled and under which circumstances in the articles linked below:

Tags with built-in support for consent mode

Google tags for the following products contain built-in consent checks and adjust behavior based on consent state:

Google tag
Google Analytics
Google Ads*
Floodlight
Conversion Linker

* supports conversion tracking and your data segments; support for Phone Call conversions pending.

If you create tags that do not have built-in consent checks, you can add checks in Tag Manager. Use the Advanced > Consent Settings tag configuration. Learn more about managing consent with Tag Manager

For details on how specific tags behave with consent mode, refer to Consent mode reference.

Get started with consent mode

Your data source	1. Obtain user consent	2. Send user choice to Google	3. Ensure Google tags comply with consent choice
Website	Set up a consent banner	Set up consent mode	Verify consent mode implementation
App	Set up a consent banner	Set up consent mode	Verify consent mode implementation
Data uploads to Google	Obtain user consent for data uploads to Google	Send consent for data you upload to Google	N/A

Consent mode impact results

After you’ve implemented consent mode for at least 7 full days, Google Ads and Google Analytics may have enough data to report the uplift. The uplift numbers will only be shown when a slice’s uplift meets the minimum data threshold. Learn more About consent mode impact results

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