Google Consent Mode v2 Explained

Why Consent Mode exists

Swedish law, through the Electronic Communications Act and GDPR as supervised by IMY, requires consent before non-essential cookies are set. A banner alone does not make Google's tags comply; the tags need to know what was chosen. Consent Mode is Google's standard for that message. Without it, either the tags fire regardless of the banner, which is a compliance problem, or they never fire, which means Google Ads cannot measure or optimise. Consent Mode lets you respect the choice and keep whatever measurement the choice allows.

Basic vs advanced mode

In basic mode, Google tags are not loaded at all until the visitor consents. Nothing is sent for visitors who decline, and Google models conversions from general patterns only. In advanced mode, the tags load before consent but with storage denied: they send cookieless pings without identifiers, and Google uses those to model the behaviour of visitors who declined. Advanced mode gives better reporting and Ads optimisation; basic mode is simpler to explain and defend. Both are permitted under Google's rules; which one is right depends on how much you rely on Google Ads and how your privacy notice describes data sent before consent.

The consent signals explained

Consent Mode communicates through a handful of signals, each set to granted or denied. Two existed in version 1 and two were added in version 2. Your banner maps its categories, typically statistics and marketing, to these signals.

• analytics_storage: whether Google Analytics may set cookies to measure the visit. Usually mapped to the statistics category.
• ad_storage: whether advertising cookies may be set, for example to attribute a click to a conversion. Mapped to marketing.
• ad_user_data: new in v2, whether user data may be sent to Google for advertising purposes. Mapped to marketing.
• ad_personalization: new in v2, whether data may be used for personalised advertising such as remarketing. Mapped to marketing.
• Defaults must be set to denied before any tag loads, then updated when the visitor makes a choice.

Setup with your consent tool

Most consent management platforms used in Sweden, whether Cookiebot, CookieYes, Usercentrics or a WordPress plugin, offer a Consent Mode integration. In Google Tag Manager, the platform's template sets the default signals to denied on page load and updates them when the visitor chooses. Your Google tags then need consent settings that require the right signals, so that Analytics waits for analytics_storage and Ads tags wait for ad_storage and ad_user_data. Choose basic or advanced mode in the platform's settings. Then make sure the banner's categories are honest: a marketing category that fires Analytics, or a statistics category that fires Ads, breaks the mapping and the compliance.

Checking that it works

Verification takes ten minutes and is where most setups turn out to be wrong. Open the site in a private window with Tag Assistant connected, and look at the consent state on page load: every signal should read denied. Decline in the banner and confirm that no Analytics or Ads cookies appear in the browser's storage and, in basic mode, that no Google requests are sent. Accept, and confirm the signals update to granted and that the tags fire. Repeat on a mobile browser, where banners often behave differently. In Google Ads and Analytics, the consent status column later shows whether signals are being received. A tracking and analytics setup includes this configuration and verification; the price is on our pricing page.

When you do not need this: if you use no Google tags at all, for instance a privacy-first analytics tool and no Google Ads, Consent Mode has nothing to control and your banner alone is the compliance mechanism. If your site has no cookie banner because it sets no non-essential cookies, you have nothing to signal. If you are running Google Ads and have never checked the signals in Tag Assistant, book a short call and we will check them with you.

Frequently asked questions