Google Consent Mode v2: Take action now to prevent performance impact
In the ever-evolving digital marketing landscape, Google has announced Consent Mode v2, which businesses must implement by March this year.
This is to promote and ensure compliance with the Digital Market Act (DMA), and failure to do so will result in the following:
Restricted ad targeting.
Reduced data availability for insights and reporting.
Bidding algorithms running on inaccurate and incomplete data, directly impacting performance.
In extreme cases, Google may suspend Ads or Analytics accounts for non-compliance.
What is Google Consent Mode?
It is a feature that communicates a user’s consent choices back to Google when using their tools to collect data.
There are two levels of implementation: Basic and Advanced. A user who consents to cookies is treated the same way by both - with full data collection taking place. The difference lies in the data collection for users who do not consent to cookies.
With Basic, no data is collected if a user does not consent. With Advanced, if a user does not consent, anonymous, cookie-less pings are sent to Google for modelling, allowing for the recovery of some level of data in Google Ads and GA4.
So, what is Google Consent Mode v2?
The key difference between Google Consent Mode and Google Consent Mode v2 is the addition of two new consent states:
ad_user_data: Controls whether user data can be sent to Google for advertising purposes.
ad_personalization: Controls whether personalised advertising (remarketing) can be enabled.
Businesses already using Google Consent Mode must upgrade their implementations to include these new parameters by March.
What is required to implement Consent Mode v2?
A cookie banner which stores a user’s consent choices; this could be via a Consent Management Platform (CMP) or a custom solution.
A method for communicating a user’s consent choices to Google; this could be via a CMP integration, deploying additional code to your website or using Google Tag Manager (GTM).
Accord has extensive experience working with various CMPs and can provide technical assistance and support for the implementation of Google Consent Mode v2. Contact us today to learn more about what we can offer and how we can work together.
Resources:
Google Policy https://www.google.com/about/company/user-consent-policy/
Cookie Information: https://cookieinformation.com/resources/blog/top-10-questions-about-googles-consent-mode-v2/
CookieScript: https://cookie-script.com/blog/google-consent-mode-v2
Dan Ward
Dan is Accord’s Head of Performance and GA Guru. Get in touch if you want to pick his brains on all things marketing performance.
