What it does
Consent Mode is a way to tell Google tags what the visitor has agreed to. Its four primary advertising and analytics signals are analytics storage, ad storage, ad user data and ad personalisation; Google’s API defines additional consent types for other storage and functionality. Tags read the current state and adjust their behaviour rather than necessarily being removed from the page.
In a basic implementation the tags are simply not loaded until consent exists. In an advanced implementation they load with denied defaults and send cookieless pings, from which Google models the missing measurement. Which one you are running is a decision with legal implications, and it should be a deliberate one.
The ordering requirement
Defaults after the container is the same as no defaults
The denied defaults have to be established before the container loads. Set them afterwards and tags may already have run with their own assumptions; the presence of Consent Mode code alone does not prove correct ordering.
StrongPrivacy’s tag manager adapter loads the container with denied defaults established before any tag runs, then sends consent updates as the visitor’s selections change, and updated denied states on withdrawal.
Common questions
Does Consent Mode make a consent banner unnecessary?
No. It is a transport for a decision, not a way of making one. Something still has to collect the choice, record it, and be able to demonstrate it later.
Is advanced mode compliant in the EEA?
It sends cookieless pings before consent, which is a processing activity in its own right. Whether that is acceptable for your site is a question for your advisers; the product does not assume an answer, and the technology reference is explicit that advanced-mode behaviour needs manual review.
Sources and verification
Verified on . Product-behaviour statements were checked against the current implementation and tests. The links below are the verification basis recorded for this article. They support the stated facts, not a legal conclusion for every site or configuration; recheck changing vendor behaviour before relying on it in production.
- Google: set up consent mode on websites
Vendor documentation
Checked
- Google: consent mode reference and consent types
Vendor documentation
Checked
See what your own site is loading
A browser scan reports the requests and storage it observed during the sampled journey. Use configured workspace scans to compare the states and pages that matter to your implementation.