Tips & Tricks

Google Consent Mode (beta)

Google Consent Mode is a new way for your website to measure conversions and get analytics insights while being fully GDPR compliant when using services like Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager (GTM) and Google Ads.

With the Google Consent Mode, your website is able to make all Google services run in one simple way: based on the consent of your end-users.

Cookiebot and Google Consent Mode integrate seamlessly to offer you plug-and-play compliance and streamlined use of all Google’s services in one easy solution.

Cookiebot also comes as a standard tag in Google Tag Manager and is the only CMP in the GTM Gallery.

Google Consent Mode is still in beta. Be careful using this on production environments. We’ve seen issues where Google Analytics presents inaccurate or even no pageview count.

In a nutshell, the Google Consent Mode bridges the gap between data privacy and data-driven digital advertisement by making sure that your website’s analytics and marketing can run seamlessly based on each specific user’s consent choice.

Attributing conversions to the campaign that drove them is a key priority for you as an advertiser. It helps you better optimize campaign bids and reallocate budget towards the best performers. With Consent Mode, advertisers can achieve greater insight into conversion data while also making sure that the Google tags helping them measure conversions are reflecting users’ consent choices for ads cookies.

As Google Consent Mode respects all privacy aspects, high opt-in percentages on your cookie banner for consent are still relevant.

If a user consents, conversion measurement reporting continues normally. If a user does not consent, the relevant Google tags will adjust accordingly and not use ads cookies, instead measuring conversions at a more aggregate level.

source: https://blog.google/products/marketingplatform/360/measure-conversions-while-respecting-user-consent-choices/

The CookieMagic Cookiebot Custom Banners integrate seamlessly with the Google Consent Mode. The Cookiebot Custom Banners have been designed for high opt-in percentages to obtain user consent (up to 95%).

The CookieMagic custom banner designs operate on the Cookiebot technology, respecting its features and functionalities towards the new Google Consent Mode. 

This reassures our choice for Cookiebot as the leading Consent Management Platform in respecting privacy of the internet user, while optimizing and supporting your online business goals through proper marketing and analytics insights.

The launch of the Google Consent Mode is a milestone in the making of consent, and in making websites able to balance user data protection with digital ad revenue.

We believe respecting the privacy of your website visitor is important and that your website visitor should be able to rely on this. 

Next to the Google Consent Mode – Cookiebot integration, we also have a legal statement available for the custom banner designs. Law firm ICTLaw have prepared the statement based on the latest GDPR requirements and is available for you as a reassurance of our efforts to support you in managing your cookies while achieving your online business goals.

Google Consent Mode is an open API, which means that your website needs a consent management platform that can communicate your end-users’ consent choices to the API, which then controls the behavior of services like Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager and Google Ads.

Cookiebot is the world’s leading consent management platform that scans and detects all cookies and trackers on your website, then automatically controls them based on the consent of your website’s users.

Cookiebot is also the only consent management platform (CMP) in the Google Tag Manager Gallery as a standard tag for the protection of your end-users’ privacy through strong and automatic consent management.

Cookiebot fully integrates with Google Consent Mode right out of the box.

Cookiebot and Google Consent Mode fit like hand-in-glove and makes compliance on your website simple and seamless, no matter how big or small your domain is.

  • Cookiebot scans and detects all cookies and trackers on your website, and automatically blocks them until your end-users give their consent.
  • Cookiebot enables users to give their consent through a highly customizable consent banner on your website that is both simple and easy-to-understand for end-users, but also has the option of being unfolded for details on each specific cookie (such as purpose, provider and duration).
  • Cookiebot forwards the consent state of the user to the Google Consent Mode, which then determines the behavior of all tags and scripts from its services based on the consent state, e.g. through Gtag.

Once users give their consent through Cookiebot, only the consent state is forwarded to Google – i.e. no personal data is sent from Cookiebot to Google, but only the specifics of the anonymous user’s consent (e.g. whether they have accepted marketing cookies or not).

More information on implementing Google Consent Mode and Cookiebot, click here to visit our support page.

Run Google Analytics, Tag Manager or Ads running without the use of analytics and marketing cookies

All in all, the groundbreaking novelty of the Google Consent Mode is that it enables websites to have e.g. Google Analytics, Tag Manager or Ads running without the use of analytics and marketing cookies, respecting the individual user’s choice of consent, at the same time as e.g. making sure that your data-driven analytics and marketing programs keep measuring conversions and providing you with important insight into vital statistics for your website.

A user visits your website and is presented with Cookiebot’s consent banner that shows them four simple cookie categories up front and the possibility to see how many cookies and trackers the Cookiebot scanner has found on your domain.

The user chooses not to give their consent to any analytics or marketing cookies, and Cookiebot keeps blocking all such trackers from activation, respecting the user’s choice of consent.Cookiebot sends the user’s consent state to the Google Consent Mode, and this specific consent state becomes the basis of operation for all Google services that you are using on your website, e.g. by controlling Google Analytics data collection based  on user consent states.

Try for yourself? Click here…

You can choose to work with the IAB intended Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF) v2.0. (Which is also supported by Cookiebot).

Or

You can work with a consent model which is more flexible in combination with Google Tag Manager.

For advertisers who choose not to use TCF v2.0, Google have introduced a new solution to offer more flexibility in how they use Google tags alongside their user consent tools. Google Consent Mode introduces two new tag settings that manage cookies for advertising and analytics purposes for advertisers using the global site tag or Google Tag Manager. These two settings can be used to customize how Google tags behave before and after users make their consent decisions – helping advertisers more effectively measure conversions, while respecting user consent choices for ads cookies and analytics cookies.

Attributing conversions to the campaign that drove them is a key priority for advertisers. It helps them better optimize campaign bids and reallocate budget towards the best performers. With Google Consent Mode, advertisers can achieve greater insight into conversion data while also making sure that the Google tags helping them measure conversions are reflecting users’ consent choices for ads cookies.

Once Google Consent Mode is implemented, advertisers will have access to a new tag setting, “ad_storage,” which controls cookie behavior for advertising purposes, including conversion measurement. If a user does not provide consent for ads cookies, Google tags will not use cookies for advertising purposes.

Let’s say someone visits your website and makes their consent selection for the use of ads cookies on your cookie consent banner. With Google Consent Mode, your Google tags will be able to determine whether or not permission has been given for your site to use cookies for advertising purposes for that user. If a user consents, conversion measurement reporting continues normally. If a user does not consent, the relevant Google tags will adjust accordingly and not use ads cookies, instead measuring conversions at a more aggregate level.

With Google Consent Mode, you can update Google tag behavior based on the user consent selection.

With Google Consent Mode, campaigns running on Google Ads, Campaign Manager, Display & Video 360, and Search Ads 360 will be able to continue reporting conversions – while respecting users’ consent choices for ads cookies. And because you’re able to retain conversion measurement in your campaign reporting, you’ll be able to continue attributing conversions to the right campaign and optimize your campaign bidding efficiently.

Google Consent Mode also works with Google Analytics. This means that Analytics will be able to understand and respect user consent for ads cookies. For example, when the “ad_storage” tag setting is disabled for unconsented users, Analytics will not read or write ads cookies, meaning that optional features that rely on Google signals, like remarketing, will be disabled.

In addition to the “ad_storage” tag setting, Google Consent Mode provides advertisers with a new tag setting, “analytics_storage,” which controls analytics cookie usage. Let’s say you would like to request consent for both analytics and ads cookies from users on your website. You can use Consent Mode to update Google tag behavior based on the user selection for each type of cookie. Analytics will adjust data collection based on user consent for each of the “ad_storage” and “analytics_storage” settings. For example, if a user does not provide consent for ads cookies (and therefore advertising purposes are disabled), but does provide consent for analytics cookies, advertisers will still be able to measure site behavior and conversions in Analytics as the “analytics_storage” setting will be enabled.

source: https://blog.google/products/marketingplatform/360/measure-conversions-while-respecting-user-consent-choices/

Want to try for yourself and use the CookieMagic custom banner designs? Click here.

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