Consent Mode
Google's mechanism for telling its tags how a visitor answered the cookie banner, so tags adjust what they store and send. Consent Mode v2 has been required for EU audiences in Google Ads since March 2024.
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In short
Consent mode is the way Google tags learn how a visitor answered the cookie banner. The consent management platform sets a handful of consent states, and Google Ads, GA4 and Floodlight tags read them to decide whether to set cookies, whether to send full data and whether the visitor may be used for advertising. Since March 2024 Google requires Consent Mode v2 for advertisers who measure or remarket to people in the European Economic Area.
It matters for attribution because a declined banner used to mean a lost conversion. Consent mode gives Google a way to model some of what it cannot observe, and a consent-aware first-party tracker gives you a way to keep the conversion itself, without personal data, until consent is given.
The Consent States
analytics_storage
May analytics cookies be set? Governs GA4's client ID and session cookies.
ad_storage
May advertising cookies be set? Governs the Google Ads conversion cookies and click ID storage.
ad_user_data
May user data be sent to Google for advertising? Added in v2, required for conversion measurement in the EEA.
ad_personalization
May the visitor be used for remarketing and personalised ads? Added in v2.
Basic vs. Advanced Consent Mode
In basic mode the Google tags do not load at all until the visitor consents, so a declined banner produces nothing and Google models conversions from general patterns. In advanced mode the tags load before consent but send cookieless pings that carry no identifiers; Google uses those pings to model conversions for the visitors who declined, based on the behaviour of similar visitors who consented.
- Basic: cleaner from a privacy standpoint, less data for modelling, larger modelled gaps.
- Advanced: more signal for Google's models, but pings are sent before consent, which some data protection teams reject.
- Either way the modelled conversions are Google's estimate, visible in Google Ads and GA4 but not tied to a person you can find in your CRM.
What Consent Mode Does Not Do
- It does not recover the leadA modelled conversion is a number in a report. The person who declined and then filled your form is still in your CRM with 'Direct' as the source.
- It is Google onlyMeta, LinkedIn and Microsoft have their own approaches to consent. Consent mode does nothing for them.
- It does not replace consentThe banner and the legal basis are still yours to get right. Consent mode only tells the tags what was answered.
What a Consent-Aware Tracker Does
A consent-aware tracker treats consent as a field on every event rather than a switch on the whole system. Before consent it records what happened, the click, the page, the conversion, with no cookie and no personal data. After consent, or when the visitor identifies by submitting a form, it can join those events to the person and send the outcome to the ad platforms with hashed identifiers. The consent state travels with the event, so the log shows exactly what was collected under which answer. See first-party tracking and GDPR-compliant tracking.
Conclusion
Consent mode is Google's way of measuring around a declined banner with models. It is required in the EEA, it is Google only, and it never gives you back the lead. A first-party, consent-aware layer keeps the conversion itself, without personal data, until the person chooses to be known, which is the part consent mode was never designed to do.
Keep exploring
Related glossary terms
Cookieless Tracking
Measuring visits and conversions without depending on third-party cookies, and increasingly without depending on any cookie the browser can shorten or block. In practice: first-party collection, click IDs and hashed identifiers matched on a server.
Read the definition7 min read
First-Party Data
Data a business collects directly from its own audience through its own properties: website visits, form fills, calls, CRM records, purchases, email engagement. The party that collects it is the party that uses it.
Read the definition7 min read
Server-Side Tracking
Capturing conversion events on a first-party server and forwarding them to ad platforms via API, instead of relying on browser pixels that iOS, ad blockers and consent banners strip away.
Read the definition7 min read
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