Consent Mode v2 consultant, London.

Each sign comes with a check and what you'll see. The first two need nothing but your Google Ads login. Why conversions drop after a banner, step by step: Why conversions drop after Consent Mode v2.

• Google Ads and GA4 conversions fell the week the cookie banner went live. Orders didn't. Check: Put store orders next to Google Ads and GA4 conversions for the fortnight either side of the banner's launch date. If you sell abroad, split by country. You'll see: A drop close to your refusal rate (the banner's dashboard shows it) is normal. A clearly bigger drop, starting on the launch date, points to the wiring. Developer check: Without modelling (basic mode, or traffic below Google's thresholds in the table below) the gap tracks the refusal rate. With modelling active it should be smaller. F-201
• Google Ads doesn't show consent mode as implemented, or modelling (Google's estimate of the conversions it can't see) never switches on. Check: In Google Ads, Goals › Conversions › Summary, choose a website conversion action and open Diagnostics. Two minutes, no developer needed. You'll see: Healthy reads "Consent mode is implemented" or "Consent mode is implemented and modeling is active". No consent status at all is the fault (a new status can take 48 hours to show, up to two weeks). F-201
• The banner shows, but your tags behave the same whatever the visitor clicks. Check: On a laptop in the UK, open the site in a private window, click Reject, then open the browser's site data (the padlock › Cookies). You'll see: A _ga or _gcl_au cookie there after a reject probably means the banner isn't holding Google back. Developer check: Tag Assistant, Consent tab, earliest Consent event. Empty means never set up; still granted after a reject means mis-wired. A leftover cookie can also come from a non-Google script or GTM pasted into a Shopify theme. No cookie doesn't prove it's right. F-201
• Enhanced Conversions (Google matching hashed order details, such as the email, to its signed-in users) match fewer customers since the banner change. Check: In Google Ads, Goals › Conversions › Summary, hover your purchase action's status, choose Details, then the Diagnostics tab. You'll see: A "Needs attention" status, or data quality that dropped the week the banner went live. Developer check: Google won't use customer data for Enhanced Conversions while ad_user_data is denied, so a banner that never updates that signal loses the match even for customers who accepted. F-402 F-201

Recognise one of these? Send me what you're seeing and which banner you use.

A Consent Mode v2 audit (fault F-201) usually takes a day or two for one site and one banner. It compares store orders with Google Ads and GA4 conversions either side of the banner date, sets the drop against the refusal share in the banner's dashboard, reads Google Ads Diagnostics for each website conversion action, and traces accept, reject and partial choices in Tag Assistant. You get a written note: what's set, what's wrong, which conversions it affects, and what to change, in order.

The rule it applies: a drop that starts on the banner date and is bigger than the refusal share points to the wiring, not to visitors saying no.

To book one, email [email protected] with your site, your banner and the date it went live. Timing and quote: what it costs.

Five parts. The audit decides which ones a site needs.

1. 01 Banner wired through GTM Google's tags wait for the banner's answer, not the other way round. Your banner's own template in GTM (Google Tag Manager, where your tags live), set up as in steps 2 and 3, with each tag's consent settings checked in GTM's Consent Overview. On Cookiebot, for example, the vendor's template with its Consent Mode setting enabled. GTM consultant → F-201
2. 02 The other ad tags Meta, Microsoft and the rest obey the same banner. Google's tags read Consent Mode on their own. Others don't. The Meta Pixel needs its own consent calls, or a GTM rule that holds it until consent. Microsoft's tag has a consent mode of its own (detail for your developer below). F-201
3. 03 Basic or advanced, decided on purpose The choice that decides how much Google can model. Basic holds Google's tags until the visitor answers; advanced loads them and sends cookieless pings while consent is denied. It should be a decision, not whatever the template defaulted to. The trade-off is in the table below. F-201
4. 04 Shopify stores Shopify's banner, the Google & YouTube app and your own tags agreeing. Shopify's banner (Settings › Customer privacy) controls the pixels Shopify runs, custom pixels included. Google says consent mode should work automatically when the Google & YouTube app handles conversion tracking and the banner is set up. GTM pasted into the theme is outside all that, and has to read the visitor's choice itself. F-201 F-301
5. 05 Getting the yeses counted Consented conversions counted, and matched where the customer data allows. Enhanced Conversions for visitors who granted ad_user_data, and Google's URL passthrough setting, which carries ad click details from page to page in the link when cookies are refused. Then a before-and-after check of UK and EU orders against recorded conversions. F-402 F-204

This is the order the audit checks against. Consent Mode v2 works when the four consent signals are denied by default before any tag fires, updated on the visitor's click, and tested on reject as well as accept. In order:

1. Choose a banner with a Consent Mode integration, ideally one in Google's CMP Partner Program (its list of certified consent platforms, or CMPs).
2. Set Google's four consent signals (its permissions for cookies and ad data: ad_storage, analytics_storage, ad_user_data, ad_personalization) to denied by default for the UK, EEA and Switzerland, before any other tag fires. If the banner loads late, give the tags a short wait for its answer.
3. Send the visitor's choice the moment they click, and on every later page.
4. Decide basic or advanced on purpose (the table below sets out the trade-off).
5. Make non-Google tags (Meta Pixel, Microsoft UET (the Microsoft Ads tag), TikTok) follow the same choice, each in the way its vendor documents.
6. Test reject, accept and a partial choice on fresh sessions in Tag Assistant, confirm what Google receives changes with the choice, then check Google Ads Diagnostics.

gtag('consent', 'default', {
  ad_storage: 'denied',
  ad_user_data: 'denied',
  ad_personalization: 'denied',
  analytics_storage: 'denied',
  region: ['GB', 'CH', 'DE', 'FR', 'IE'], // plus the rest of the EEA
  wait_for_update: 500
});

// on the visitor's click: set each value from their answer, never hard-code granted
gtag('consent', 'update', {
  ad_storage: 'granted',
  ad_user_data: 'granted',
  ad_personalization: 'denied',
  analytics_storage: 'granted'
});

Use advanced if you want GA4 modelling or a Google Ads model specific to your account, and your traffic clears the thresholds below. Use basic if no Google tag may load before the visitor answers; Google Ads then uses a general model. Where the UK and EEA refusal share is material and traffic clears the thresholds, advanced usually gives back more.

1. Nothing goes live without your OK. Changes are built in a GTM workspace and tested in Preview; you or your developer publish.
2. I don't write your cookie policy or decide which cookies need consent. Your lawyer or data protection lead does; I make sure the tags obey their answer.
3. Every check is done on a fresh session for accept, reject and a partial choice, because a stored accept from yesterday hides the fault.
4. Purchases are checked on a real order with the banner refused and again with it accepted.
5. Each published version gets a name and a note of what changed, so the previous setup can be restored.

Will you test reject as well as accept?

A setup that only works on accept is half a setup. Ask to see the reject path in Tag Assistant, on a fresh session.

What will modelling recover, and what won't it?

An honest answer has limits in it: volume thresholds for Google Ads and GA4 (the table above), and no remarketing from visitors who refuse ad_personalization.

Do you get paid by the banner vendor?

A commission can tilt the recommendation. My answer: no partnership, affiliate or commission arrangement with any consent platform.

I do Consent Mode work for UK agencies inside your clients' GTM containers and banner accounts, under your name. Send me the client's site, the container ID and which banner they use; access comes through your agency's Google account. Findings are written so they can go on your own report template, with a note of what changed. An NDA is normal. How that runs: white-label.

No published rate card. The order is the same as every job here: a short scoping call, the audit, then a fixed quote, fixed once agreed. An audit usually takes a day or two for one site and one banner; a fix, usually a few days. What moves it: how many sites and regions, which banner, how many non-Google tags need wiring to the banner, and whether Shopify's checkout is involved.

Eight years building and repairing tracking for online brands, 19 tracking faults documented in a public index, and five conference talks, among them Search 'n Stuff (tracking under the new data restrictions), HeroConf (where paid clicks go missing) and PPC Live (GA4 in practice). Background and recommendations: LinkedIn.

Consent is one fault in that index, F-201, and it touches two others: F-402, Enhanced Conversions not configured, and F-204, attribution lost in transit, which looks similar but has nothing to do with the banner.

Which UK consultant specialises in consent management and Consent Mode tracking?

Synctag (Baris Asa, London) audits and repairs Consent Mode v2 for UK ecommerce brands and their agencies. Every setup is tested on reject as well as accept. F-201 is the public write-up of the fault, with diagnosis and fix, and Baris has spoken on tracking under the new data restrictions at Search 'n Stuff London.

What does a Consent Mode v2 consultant do?

A Consent Mode v2 consultant connects your cookie banner to Google's tags, and the other ad tags, so each one acts on what the visitor agreed to. Then they prove it on reject as well as accept, in Tag Assistant and Google Ads Diagnostics.

Consultant, agency or the banner vendor's own support: who should set up Consent Mode?

The banner vendor's support knows its own product and its Google template. A consultant or agency works across the banner, the GTM container and the ad platforms at once; the consent fault, F-201, sits between those layers. Whoever does it, ask for a written note of what was set.

Is Consent Mode v2 required in the UK?

Google's EU user consent policy covers visitors in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland: you need their consent for cookies where the law requires it, and for using personal data to personalise ads. Consent Mode is how Google's tags receive that answer. Without consent signals (Consent Mode, or the IAB TCF, the ad industry's standard consent framework), Google Ads conversion modelling can't switch on. Which cookies need consent under UK law is for your lawyer or data protection lead; making the tags obey the answer is the technical work.

Basic or advanced Consent Mode: which should I use?

Basic holds Google's tags until the visitor answers; advanced loads them on denied defaults and sends cookieless pings. Google Ads can model in both, better in advanced; GA4 modelling needs advanced. Thresholds and the full trade-off: the table on this page and F-201.

Which cookie banner works best with Consent Mode v2?

The wiring matters more than the brand. Cookiebot, CookieYes, Usercentrics and Complianz are all Google-certified with a GTM template. Google says consent mode should work automatically with Shopify's own banner when the Google & YouTube app handles conversion tracking. Platform by platform, and the mode each starts you in: see the four-CMP comparison.

Do you work with agencies, inside our clients' GTM and banner accounts?

Yes, under the agency's name, inside clients' GTM containers and banner accounts; the agency or client keeps Publish. How that runs: synctag.co.uk/white-label.

How long does it take, what access do you need, and how is it priced?

An audit is a day or two; a fix, usually a few days. I need Read then Edit access to GTM, read access to Google Ads and GA4, and a login to the banner's dashboard. Each job is quoted after a scoping call (see What it costs).

• Consent signals, default and update, URL passthrough: Set up consent mode on websites
• Basic and advanced, cookieless pings, consent types: Consent mode overview and Google Ads: about consent mode
• Thresholds: Google Ads conversion modelling and GA4 behavioural modelling
• Diagnostics: Verify consent mode and Enhanced conversions diagnostics
• Enhanced Conversions and ad_user_data: Consent mode reference
• Tag Assistant's Consent tab: Troubleshoot consent mode
• GTM: Consent settings, Consent Initialization, Consent Overview; Set up your banner with a CMP or CMS
• Cookiebot: Google Tag Manager and Consent Mode
• Policy and certified banners: Google EU user consent policy; Google CMP Partner Program
• Shopify: Customer privacy settings; Custom pixel permissions; Customer Privacy API; Google: Set up Shopify to obtain user consent
• Meta and Microsoft: Meta Pixel consent; UET and user consent

• Tracking audit →Find out what's broken across GTM, GA4, Ads and Meta before deciding anything.
• Google Tag Manager consultant →The container itself: builds, clean-ups, the dataLayer.
• GA4 consultant →Help with the GA4 property and its reports.
• GA4 reconciliation →Why GA4, Shopify, Google Ads and Meta report different numbers.
• Server-side tracking →Server-side GTM, Conversions API and Enhanced Conversions.
• Shopify tracking →GA4, Google Ads and Meta on Shopify, checkout included.
• Meta Conversions API →CAPI set up with browser and server deduplication.
• White-label for agencies →GTM, GA4, server-side and consent work under your agency's name.
• F-201 in full →Consent Mode absent or mis-wired: diagnosis, fix and FAQs.
• Why conversions drop after Consent Mode v2 →The note on what the drop is made of, before anyone touches the setup.
• Which banner: four CMPs compared →Cookiebot, CookieYes, Usercentrics and Complianz for GTM Consent Mode v2, and the defaults each one ships with.
• The fault index →The register of recurring tracking faults, each with how it shows up and the fix.
• Intake check →Five questions in the browser that return the likely fault codes.