One Year of Google Consent Mode v2: Time for a Compliance Check-Up

It’s hard to believe, but March 2025 marks the one-year anniversary of Google Consent Mode v2 becoming a Google requirement when using Google Marketing Platform’s advertisement features in the European Economic Area (EEA). While this milestone signifies progress in privacy compliance and data quality assurance, many businesses are still struggling to get their implementation completely right or miss critical precautions in the use of it. 

A quick recap on Consent Mode

In case you might have forgotten, Consent Mode is Google’s response to the European Commission’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) legislation, declaring Google/Alphabet as one of the major tech gatekeepers to ensure compliance with user data and privacy regulations when using their products. 

The update to Google Consent Mode v2 allows your website to adjust how tags behave based on users’ consent preferences communicated through a Consent Management Platform (CMP) and cookie banner, which enable websites to control what user data can be collected, processed, and activated. This communication between the CMP, Consent Mode, and website tags makes Consent Mode v2 an essential component for aligning with user privacy requirements while maintaining data accuracy for analytics and marketing platforms. 

So, where does it often go wrong? 

When it comes to the implementation of a CMP and the derived consent states in Consent Mode, usually multiple stakeholders – and constellations of same – can be involved in the process, ranging from IT/web developers, internal marketing teams, the legal department, and external agencies. These stakeholders often come with both different areas of expertise, technical capabilities and investment levels in terms of the daily use of Consent Mode.  

Typically, there are two types of CMP and Consent Mode implementation for web: 

• Through the webpage source code, which usually involves your web developer 

• Through GTM usually carried out by an ecommerce manager or your marketing agency 

However, especially when opting for the GTM implementation, there are several precautions you need to take, which might be less intuitive and deviate from the way you have previously relied on GTM’s built-in functions.

For example, even the short timing discrepancy from a user interacts with your cookie banner to the information is read by GTM, can lead to a range of different scenarios including: 

• Non-Google tags firing without user consent 

• Google tags firing with Advanced Consent Mode, although only Basic Consent Mode is approved by your legal department  

• Inconsistencies in event data from the first pageview vs. subsequent interactions. 

Now, add to the complexity multiple stakeholders navigating the same GTM, including marketing managers or IT with often less GTM experience, or situations where new agencies are granted access without proper instructions or guidelines of the tracking setup.

 Are you confident in your setup? 

The matter of Consent Mode quickly becomes quite technical but here are some questions you can ask yourself to know if you are on the right track: 

• Are you loading your consent banner through GTM? 

• Do you know if a Default consent state is deployed upon each page load? 

• Does the consent update event appear after Container Loaded, DOM Ready, or Window Loaded events in GTM when previewing? 

• Do multiple stakeholders work in the same GTM container? 

• Do you know if you run Basic or Advanced Consent Mode? 

• Does all Google and non-Google tags have Consent Mode settings applied or at least other precautions controlling tags? 

Take action today 

If you are unsure about any of these questions, it might be time for a new assessment of your tracking setup. Reach out to get an audit that can help identify gaps in your current setup, ensure that your business remains compliant, and significantly lower the risk of sanctions for breaking user privacy legislation. 

If you have multiple stakeholders making frequent updates in GTM, you might also be a candidate for a more continuous monitoring service partner, which we can also help you with. 

So, reach out to your local specialists in Tracking & Analytics:  

Denmark: Kenneth Wittendorf, Operations Director, at [email protected] 

Sweden: Felix Schenk, Agency Lead, at [email protected] 

Norway: Torgeir Telle, Senior Consultant, at [email protected] 

Finland: Kerkko Rasilainen, Senior AD Operations Specialist, at [email protected]