Consent Mode: Google’s new solution for respecting consent rules

How to continue measuring conversions while respecting new consent rules

Now that webpages must ask for the explicit consent of users before installing cookies in their browser, it is impossible to measure conversion rates for users who refuse to give their consent. With its new “Consent mode” functionality, Google looks to mitigate this impact. In this article, we’ll give you an inside look at how it works.

Two types of consent

Consent mode is focused on two types of consent: general analytics and ad personalization. These two new variables – ad_storage and analytics_storage – allow you to inform your tags (Google Analytics, GMP, and Google Ads) about the status of the user’s consent and therefore adjust site behavior according to that consent.

Consent Mode is not a CMP (Consent Management Platform). It complements the system or solution that is installed which collects the consent of the users. The tags themselves will always be executed, no matter if you have the consent of the user or not. The real change comes in the information they collect: if the user has given its consent, the tag will be executed normally, while if the user has rejected it, the tag will be executed without collecting or sending cookie information. In this way, it’s possible to continue having a basic and aggregated measurement instead of completely losing this information. With the information collected from the users who have accepted the consent, Google platforms will also be able to model the conversions for those users that have rejected it. This modeling isn’t active yet, but it’s on Google’s roadmap.

URL Passthrough

An additional functionality that can be activated is called “URL Passthrough.” This option will allow you to send the click identifier in the URL to continue associating it with a conversion in the absence of cookies. To implement it, you  must be using Google Tag Manager or gtag. In order to configure it, certain additional lines of code must be included.

Other Consent Management Platforms (such as Cookiebot or OneTrust, among others) already have direct integrations developed which facilitate activation. 

Conclusion

• Consent Mode derives from the need to comply with user consent without completely losing conversion measurement. It’s a basic and necessary element to allow us to analyze, improve, and optimize advertising.
• Consent Mode is a beta tool that is still in development and will progressively include more features and options, such as the conversion modeling mentioned above.

If you want to know more about Consent Mode, get in touch with Making Science and our team of experts.