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Consent Mode V2

Consent Mode V2

Learning Objective

After reading this guide you should have a better understanding of:

  • What Consent Mode V2 is

  • How to test if you have Consent Mode V2 on your site

  • What to do if you don’t have Consent Mode V2 on your site

Contents

Overview

Consent Mode V2 is the next step in Google's commitment to privacy. Consent Mode V2 ensures further adherence of their EU user consent policy - more information of this can be found here.

As a result, clients who use Google services must ensure that they are set up to correctly process customer data in line with Googles requirements.

To be compliant with Consent Mode V2 users of Google services must create and send two new parameters within their set in addition to ad_storage and analytics_storage. These are:

  • ad_user_data

  • ad_personalization

The good news is that those using the Google Ads integration provided by Visualsoft will benefit from this immediately, with no further actions required.

How Do I Know Consent Mode V2 Is Active?

There are a number of ways to see what data is being sent to Google, but the easiest is to check your cookie consent box upon initial load. To do this follow these steps:

  • In an incognito window load the front end of your website

  • On initial load, you should see your cookie acceptance policy*, click Manage Preferences

    Screenshot 2024-04-03 at 16.02.00.png

  • On the following popup, scroll to the bottom and you should see the following:

    Screenshot 2024-04-03 at 16.06.55.png

If the above is visible, then the relevant parameter values will be sent with the customer data you typically send.

* Note - Your cookie policy may differ in view to the one above. To resolve this you can amend the setting Extended Cookie Options to Yes within your client settings. Once done, the option to manage preferences will be visible.

Cookies

Whilst in your admin, it is recommended that you assess your Cookie Policy settings to ensure you are compliant with Google's requirements. We are unable to legally advise or action this for you, so please familiarise yourself with what Google requires and amend your settings accordingly. Selection (including non-selection) of said settings is completed at your own risk.

What Do I Do If Consent Mode V2 Is Not On My Site?

There may be many reasons why you are unable to see the parameters detailed above. The most common causes, though, are:

  • Using Google Tag Manager for your Google Ads integration, rather than the VS integration

  • Cookies selection is not set to show

Integrations using Google Tag Manager

If you use GTM you have a few options at your disposal:

  1. Integrate to the tried, tested and fully supported VS integration used by hundreds of VS websites

    1. Note - this will require a ticket to be logged with the Service Desk team

  2. Complete the work required yourself, as detailed by Google. We are unable to support this route, and can offer no assistance

  3. Request the VS Changes Team complete any relevant work

    1. Note - This work will be quoted

Cookies are not set to show

If your cookies are not set to show by default you should assess Cookie Popup Opt In Preferences setting within your client settings section in your websites admin.

Summary

You should now have a more detailed picture of what Google's Consent Mode V2 changes are, as well as how to test this on your site and your next steps should you not be compliant.

Frequently Asked Questions