Consent mode allows you to adjust how your Google tags behave based on the consent status of your users. You can indicate whether consent has been granted for analytics and ads cookies. Google's tags will dynamically adapt, only utilizing cookies for the specified purposes when consent has been given by the user.
You can use consent mode in Google Ads for conversion tracking and remarketing.
Consent mode can also be used in:
Starting April 2021, conversion modeling will be available for consent mode modeling in Google Ads for users that meet all eligibility requirements. Modeled conversions will appear in the “Conversions” column and be reflected in all downstream reports that use this data.
How it works
Once consent mode is deployed, it will adjust the behavior of these types of pings:
- Consent status pings (Google Ads and Floodlight tags): Consent status pings are sent from each page the user visits where consent mode is implemented, and are also triggered for some tags if the consent state changes from denied to granted (for example, if the user opts in to a consent dialog). These pings communicate the default consent state configured by the site owner and/or the updated consent state (such as granted or denied) for each consent type (for example, ad storage, analytics storage).
- Conversion pings: Conversion pings are sent to indicate that a conversion has occurred.
- Google Analytics pings: Google Analytics pings are sent on each page of a website where Google Analytics is implemented and upon events being logged.
When consent is granted, the associated tags will function normally. When consent for ad storage or analytics storage is denied, the associated Google tags deployed via the global site tag or Google Tag Manager will adjust their behavior accordingly.
For examples of consent language and available third-party consent solutions, read cookiechoices.org. Google Ads can now read and interpret the TCF v2.0 transparency and consent (TC) string. TCF v2.0 is a way to indicate consent following a default mapping. For advertisers that would rather customize, they can turn off the TCF V2 default mapping and use Consent Mode.
Consent mode pings
In all cases, pings may include:
- Functional information (such as headers added passively by the browser):
- Timestamp
- User Agent
- Referrer
- Aggregate or 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 (for example, GCLID or DCLID).
- Boolean information about the consent state.
- Random number generated on each page load.
- Information about the consent platform used by the site owner (for example, Developer ID)
Consent mode behaviors in your conversion tracking tags
Consent and conversion pings may include the following behaviors depending on the state of the consent settings and the configuration of your tags:
ad_storage='granted' and analytics_storage='granted' (Default):
- Cookies pertaining to advertising may be read and written.
- IP addresses are collected.
- The full page URL, including ad-click information in URL parameters (for example, GCLID or DCLID) is collected.
- Third-party cookies previously set on google.com and doubleclick.net, and first-party conversion cookies (for example, _gcl_*) are accessible.
ad_storage='denied':
- Cookies are not used for advertising purposes.
- Existing first-party advertising cookies won’t be read.
- Requests are sent through a different domain to avoid previously set third-party cookies from being sent in request headers.
- Google Analytics will not read or write Google Ads cookies, and Google signals features will not accumulate data for this traffic.
- IP addresses used to derive IP country, but are never logged by our Google Ads and Floodlight systems and are immediately deleted upon collection. Note: Google Analytics collects IP addresses as part of normal internet communications. Learn more about IP anonymization in Google Analytics
- Other fields normally collected by advertisers’ tags (for example, order id, value) are still sent.
- Full page URL is collected, may include ad-click information in URL parameters (for example, GCLID or DCLID). Ad-click information will only be used to approximate accurate traffic measurement.
ad_storage='denied' + ads_data_redaction=true:
- Cookies are not used for advertising purposes.
- Existing first-party advertising cookies won’t be read.
- Requests are sent through a different domain to avoid previously set third-party cookies from being sent in request headers.
- Google Analytics will not read or write Google Ads cookies, and Google signals features will not accumulate data for this traffic.
- Full page URL is collected, may include ad-click information in URL parameters (for example, GCLID or DCLID). Ad-click information will only be used to approximate accurate traffic measurement.
- IP addresses used to derive IP country, but are never logged by our Google Ads and Floodlight systems and are immediately deleted upon collection. Note: Google Analytics collects IP addresses as part of normal internet communications. Learn more about IP anonymization in Google Analytics
- Other fields normally collected by advertisers’ tags (for example, order id, value) are still sent.
- Page URLs with ad-click identifiers are redacted.
analytics_storage='denied':
- Will not read or write first-party analytics cookies.
- Cookieless pings will be sent to Google Analytics for basic measurement and modeling purposes.
Set up consent mode
When you’re ready, learn more about how to set up consent mode: