What is the Google consent mode ? (Implementation & Impact)
Consent mode has been required by Google analytics & ads services since March 2024. But what is it and how does it work?
There are some articles online, but my goal here is to write a more digest one so you can quickly understand.
First, you will need a CMP (Consent management platform) in order to collect data from your European users. Check your CMP documentation to see how to send the consent type collected to Google tag manager.
Two types of consent mode :
Basic consent mode: data is collected only if the user grants consent.
Advanced consent mode: data is collected when users grant consent and when they deny consent.
Consent types:
Google used the following consent types to control tag firing in Google Tag Manager :
ad_storage: Enables storage (such as cookies) related to advertising.
ad_user_data: Sets consent for sending user data related to advertising to Google.
ad_personalization: Sets consent for personalized advertising.
analytics_storage: Enables storage (such as cookies) related to analytics e.g. visit duration.
In Google tag manager, you can see them in the Tag:
In this example, this means that the tag will be fired if there is at least analytics_storage granted by the user.
Also, the ads consent type is sent by Google to the Google ads for your targeting audiences.
Google documentation on consent mode and tag manager :
https://support.google.com/tagmanager/answer/10718549?hl=en
Behavioral model:
The goal from Google is to complete your missing data with behavioral model so you don’t have consistent data.
The pre-requisite for this model to work are :
Consent mode is enabled across all pages of your website.
Consent mode for web pages must be implemented so that tags are loaded before the consent dialog appears, and Google tags load in all cases, not only if the user consents (the advanced consent mode).
The property has collected at least 1,000 events per day with analytics_storage='denied' for at least 7 days.
The property has at least 1,000 daily users sending events with analytics_storage='granted' for at least 7 of the previous 28 days.
The details on this AI model is details here :
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/11161109?hl=en
Impact:
/!\ The implementation of the consent mode can impact your traffic and you can see a drop of activity !
If you want the behavioril model to apply on your Google analytics property you can select it it the admin panel here :
But be careful because your missing data will be replaced by IA generated one. Your stats would be better overall, but you might not be 100% correct regarding micro stats.
I hope this article helped you understand the Google consent mode and how it works.
If you have any question or you want to discuss this topic (or others data related topics), join us on discord !
