{"id":37913,"date":"2022-08-15T09:55:22","date_gmt":"2022-08-15T09:55:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/glosario-digital\/google-consent-mode"},"modified":"2026-09-30T19:10:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T19:10:20","slug":"google-consent-mode","status":"publish","type":"encyclopedia","link":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/google-consent-mode","title":{"rendered":"Google Consent Mode"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Definition:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Google Consent Mode<\/strong> is a mechanism that communicates a person&#8217;s consent choices to Google tags. Compatible products use those signals to adjust how they handle storage, advertising data and personalisation.<\/p>\n<p>It is not a cookie banner, a consent platform or a legal basis. A website or app must obtain the choice through a custom solution or a <strong>CMP<\/strong> (Consent Management Platform) and then send the corresponding state. Consent Mode does not guarantee legal compliance by itself.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"boxpad alignright wp-image-38042 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/google-consent-mode.png\" alt=\"Google Consent Mode\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/google-consent-mode.png 300w, https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/google-consent-mode-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<h2>How Google Consent Mode works<\/h2>\n<p>An implementation starts with a <strong>default state<\/strong> for each consent type. This state must be established before affected tags use storage or send data. When a person accepts, rejects or changes their preferences, the CMP or custom solution communicates an update.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Compatible tags<\/strong> adjust their behaviour according to those values. They include the Google tag, Google Analytics, Google Ads, Floodlight and Conversion Linker. Third-party tags do not automatically acquire the same behaviour: each provider needs its own rules and tests.<\/p>\n<p>There are <strong>two common<\/strong> configuration routes: <code>gtag.js<\/code> code or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/google-tag-manager\">Google Tag Manager<\/a>. GTM helps organise execution and consent checks, but it does not replace the CMP or decide which choice should be requested.<\/p>\n<h2>Consent types<\/h2>\n<p>The state is expressed as <code>granted<\/code> or <code>denied<\/code> for independent signals. The four most relevant signals for Google&#8217;s measurement and advertising products are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><code>analytics_storage<\/code>:<\/strong> controls storage related to analytics, such as certain measurement <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/cookie\">cookies<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong><code>ad_storage<\/code>:<\/strong> controls cookies or identifiers associated with advertising.<\/li>\n<li><strong><code>ad_user_data<\/code>:<\/strong> indicates whether consent exists to send user data to Google for advertising purposes.<\/li>\n<li><strong><code>ad_personalization<\/code>:<\/strong> indicates whether consent exists to use data for personalised advertising.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Consent Mode also defines <code>functionality_storage<\/code>, <code>personalization_storage<\/code> and <code>security_storage<\/code> for functional, personalisation and security storage. The <strong>technical map<\/strong> should not group all signals for convenience when the interface offers separate choices: it needs to reflect the purposes shown to the user.<\/p>\n<h2>Basic and advanced mode<\/h2>\n<p>Consent Mode supports two implementation approaches. The distinction describes what happens before and after the choice; it does not represent two levels of compliance:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Basic mode:<\/strong> Google tags remain blocked until the relevant consent is granted. If consent is not granted, those tags do not send data or the consent state to Google.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Advanced mode:<\/strong> compatible tags can load with denied default states. While consent remains denied, they may send cookieless measurements and later adjust their behaviour if the state changes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A cookieless measurement is still a data communication. It may include the consent state and general request information such as a timestamp, user agent, referrer or indications of ad-click parameters. Therefore, <strong>without cookies<\/strong> does not automatically mean anonymous, free of processing or legally permitted in every context.<\/p>\n<h2>Measurement and modelling<\/h2>\n<p>In advanced mode, cookieless signals may contribute to <strong>modelling<\/strong> results in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/google-analytics\">Google Analytics<\/a> and Google Ads when each product&#8217;s requirements are met. The calculation attempts to estimate some gaps between observed data, but it does not reconstruct an identity or confirm which person completed a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/conversion\">conversion<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Not every property reaches the required thresholds, and modelled results do not have to match a CRM. <strong>Variable limits<\/strong> depend on volume, implementation, received choices and product rules. Consent Mode does not guarantee recovery of every declined conversion or a specific improvement in advertising performance.<\/p>\n<p>Keep <strong>two controls<\/strong> separate: consent state and event quality. A correctly communicated choice does not fix inconsistent names, duplicates, incomplete parameters or attribution errors.<\/p>\n<h2>Implementation and limitations<\/h2>\n<p>A verifiable implementation must coordinate consent, tags and destinations. At a minimum, it requires these controls:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Technical inventory:<\/strong> locate tags, plugins, scripts, forms, subdomains and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/server-side-tracking\">server-side measurement<\/a> flows.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Signal map:<\/strong> relate every purpose shown in the CMP to the states that are actually sent.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Loading order:<\/strong> establish defaults before measurement and update the choice without overwriting it.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Complete tests:<\/strong> check no interaction, rejection, acceptance, partial selection, withdrawal and navigation between pages.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Maintenance:<\/strong> repeat tests when the banner, container, templates or integrations change.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Complete validation<\/strong> should cover Tag Assistant, cookies, storage and network requests. Seeing a <code>denied<\/code> state in one interface does not prove that every tag respects it. The practical guide to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/blog\/consent-mode-v2-marketing-measurement\">Consent Mode v2<\/a> expands the configuration and testing process without changing the definitional purpose of this glossary entry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Definition: Google Consent Mode is a mechanism that communicates a person&#8217;s consent choices to Google tags. Compatible products use those signals to adjust how they handle storage, advertising data and personalisation. It is not a cookie banner, a consent platform or a legal basis. A website or app must obtain the choice through a custom [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"template":"","encyclopedia-tag":[1298,281],"class_list":["post-37913","encyclopedia","type-encyclopedia","status-publish","hentry","encyclopedia-tag-data-instrumentation","encyclopedia-tag-privacidad-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia\/37913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/encyclopedia"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"encyclopedia-tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia-tag?post=37913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}