Google Consent Mode V2 & How to Enable It

Published by Henry William Senior Product Manager

Categorised as Guides

Published on 2 May 2024

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Google’s Consent Mode lets you communicate your users’ consent status to Google. When Consent Mode is activated, Google services such as Google Ads and Tag Manager will adjust their behaviour based on a user’s consent preferences.
GetTerms’ Consent Management Platform supports Google Consent Mode and can be configured to communicate your users’ consent preferences to Google.

GetTerms supports Google Consent Mode V2!

Cookie Consent Management Platform (CMP)

What is Google Consent Mode V2?

Google Consent Mode (GCM) is a technical framework designed to help businesses comply with EU and EEA data privacy regulations without compromising data collection for analytics and advertising purposes. Released as part of Google’s effort to align with privacy laws, GCM allows website owners to adjust the behavior of Google services based on user consent preferences. It essentially acts as a bridge between user consent choices and the data processing carried out by tools like Google Analytics 4 and Google Ads.

With GCM, when users visit a website, their consent preferences—whether they agree to or decline data collection—are communicated to Google via consent signals embedded in the website’s code. If a user agrees, the full range of data can be collected and processed. However, if they decline, GCM limits or modifies the data that is collected to respect the user’s preferences.

How to enable Google Consent Mode V2 with GetTerms

Enabling Google Consent Mode for your GetTerms Consent Widget is an easy two-step process of updating your widget configuration, and updating your embed code to match. Follow our detailed instructions below for a step-by-step walkthrough of getting your cookie widget up-to-snuff.

Please note: this article assumes that you have a GetTerms subscription that includes the Cookie Consent Widget. Learn more here

Enable Google Consent Mode in GetTerms
1. Log into GetTerms and open your chosen Policy Pack with Cookie Consent enabled.
2. Open the Cookie Consent tab.
3. Open the Cookie Consent Widget tab.
4. Open the Configuration tab.
5. Toggle “Enable Google Consent Mode” to On

A screenshot of the GetTerms Cookie Consent Widget configuration tab, highlighting the

Review your Installation Instructions.
1. Go to the Installation tab and review the instructions, as they will have changed when Google Consent mode was enabled.
2. Ensure that your website has embedded the GetTerms Cookie Consent Widget correctly:
  1. It should be the first <script> tags on the page.
  2. It should be embedded above your Google Tag Manager embed code.

A screenshot of the GetTerms Cookie Consent Widget installation tab. It contains instructions for a snippet of HTML code to add to the <head> section of your website.

Updates to your Cookie Consent Widget configuration can take up to 5 minutes to be reflected on your website. Grab a coffee, have a snack, take a load off.

Verifying your Google Consent Mode V2 installation

Once you’ve enabled Consent Mode and ensured the widget is installed correctly, you can use the Google Tag Assistant to verify that it’s working as expected.

To learn more, visit Google’s own detailed guide: Verify consent mode implementation

Please remember that updates to your Cookie Consent Widget configuration can take up to 5 minutes to be reflected on your website.

Using the Tag Assistant immediately after saving your changes may result in some false negative results.