Google Consent Mode v2: What It Is and How to Set It Up
Last updated: August 24, 2026
Google Consent Mode is a protocol that tells Google's tags (Google Analytics 4, Google Ads, Tag Manager) a visitor's cookie consent status before those tags can load anything. When consent is denied, Google doesn't set advertising or analytics cookies, but it still receives an anonymized, modeled signal — preserving some analytics and ad attribution accuracy without violating GDPR/ePrivacy.
What's new in v2
Alongside the original v1 parameters (ad_storage,analytics_storage), Consent Mode v2 adds two new ones:
ad_user_data— whether the visitor allows sending data to Google for advertising purposes;ad_personalization— whether the visitor allows personalized advertising (remarketing and similar audiences).
Since March 2024, Google requires Consent Mode v2 from advertisers using personalized advertising features who collect data from visitors in the EEA, UK, or Switzerland — without it, remarketing and conversion optimization in Google Ads gradually stop working for that traffic.
Basic vs. Advanced mode
- Basic Consent Mode — Google tags don't load at all until the visitor makes a choice. Simpler to implement, but you lose all behavioral analytics before consent.
- Advanced Consent Mode — tags always load, but run in a "cookieless" mode on denial, sending only modeled (ping) data with no personal identifiers.
How it works technically
Before Google Tag Manager loads, the page must set a default consent state (usually "denied" for every category), and after the visitor makes a choice in the banner, call gtag('consent', 'update', {...}) with the actual values. Order matters: if the default is set after GTM loads, some tags can fire before consent is accounted for.
Setting it up without developers
The Cookiestack widget sets the default consent state before GTM loads and automatically calls gtag consent update when the visitor makes a choice — including both new v2 parameters (ad_user_data, ad_personalization). Just add one script tag and enable the Google integration in your domain settings.