How to add a cookie banner to your website

Watch the video guide!

1. Create your cookie banner & policy

1. Sign in (or create) your GetTerms account.
2. From the overview page, click the box that says cookie consent banner & cookie policy to start the cookie banner setup wizard.
3. Input your contact details for data privacy related inquiries.
4. Click Add Cookie Banner & Policy.

Your cookie banner has now been generated. GetTerms will automatically start scanning your website for cookies and categorizing them for you.

2. Customize your Cookie Banner

By default, your cookie banner will be set up with our recommended appearance settings and configured for global privacy compliance. If you’re happy with the default appearance settings, you can skip to section 5 to install your banner on your website.

If you’d like to customize your banner’s appearance, let’s walk you through some of the settings.

1. Font Size: Controls the size of the text on the message and button text of your banner.
2. Background: Controls the color of the background of your banner.
3. Font Color: Controls the color of the message text and secondary button text of your banner.
4. Button Color: Controls the background color of your banner’s primary button.
5. Button Text Color: Controls the color of your primary button’s text.
6. Link Text Color: Controls the color of any links found on your banner.
7. Same Style for all Buttons: When enabled, sets the color of all banner buttons to reflect the primary button color.
8. Custom Color for Update Preferences Button: When enabled, allows you to change the color of the floating cookie icon to a unique color. By default, this button will use your Button Color setting.
9. Appearance: Sets the banner format to either Card, Banner, Pill or Popup. Setting your banner to Pill or Card will enable you to select the position of your banner to left, center or right.
10. Block Page Interaction: When enabled, your users will be unable to interact with your site until they have input their cookie consent preferences (recommended for discreet banner styles).

Once you save your settings, it will take about 2 minutes for your changes to display on your live banner. This timer resets each time you update your settings.

3. Configure your Cookie Banner’s behavior

1. Click the configuration tab in the sidebar menu to open your banner’s configuration settings.
2. Enable Google consent mode to configure your banner to Google’s requirements and tell GetTerms to share each user’s consent preferences with Google’s tags and tools. Note: this will require you to set up your tags for consent mode using Google Tag Manager.
3. Configure your banner’s behaviour based on the location of your users with the Region Specific Configurations.
4. Consent setting: Allows you to select a preset banner behavior for quick setup.
   1. Opt-in: Cookies are blocked automatically and only unblocked if the user consents to cookies.
   2. Opt-out: Cookies are allowed by default but blocked if the user rejects cookies.
   3. Use global default: Sets the cookie banner behavior to reflect the global default banner configuration (base of configuration page).
   4. No banner: Cookies are granted by default and no banner is displayed.
   5. Use regional default (California only): Sets the cookie banner behavior to reflect the banner configuration of the parent region.
   6. Custom: Allows you to configure the region’s banner behavior manually.
      1. Auto-block third party cookies: Automatically blocks non-essential cookie-setting scripts (e.g. Google Tag or Hotjar).
      2. Reject all cookies button: Reject all cookies button.
      3. Persistent icon to manage preferences: When enabled, a clickable floating icon will be displayed that allows users to quickly reopen the consent modal and update their cookie preferences.
      4. Allow granular consent controls: When enabled, users will be able to select which categories of cookies they want to accept or reject.
   7. Consent Mode Settings (Only visible if Google consent mode is enabled):
      1. Default consent state: Controls the initial consent state set by the site before the user interacts with the consent banner. For opt-in, set this to denied; for opt-out, set this to granted.
   8. Global Privacy Control (GPC) settings (United States only): GPC lets users set their consent preferences for marketing cookies at the browser level for all sites, allowing them to opt out of their personal information being sold or shared.
      1. Respect GPC signals: Enabling this setting will allow your banner to detect and respect GPC signals automatically.
      2. Show GPC detection notice: Displays a notification in the preferences panel to inform users that a GPC signal has been detected and their privacy preferences are being honored.
5. Click Save. As with the appearance settings, it will take about 2 minutes for your changes to display on your live banner. This timer resets each time you update your settings.

4. Edit your cookie banner’s content

1. You can edit any of the content fields found on your cookie banner via the Content tab of your dashboard.
2. All content settings are customizable per language. We support 5 languages natively: English US, English UK, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Hindi, and one custom translation.
3. By default, we will link to the generated cookie policy, hosted via our website in the relevant language. You can update this to a link of your choosing; just make sure you update the link in all languages if you wish to always link to the cookie policy hosted on your website.
4. Click Save at the bottom of the page to save your changes.

5. Install your Cookie Banner on your website

Once you’ve set up your banner with your desired appearance and configuration settings, you can install it using one of 3 methods.

1. Manual installation (recommended): Place your banner’s code snippet directly in your website’s <head> section. Make sure to position it as high as possible. It must be the first <script> tag on the page.
   1. Default Language: Sets the language your consent banner displays in by default.
   2. Language detection: When enabled, your banner will display in the user’s chosen browser language if it is supported. If the user’s browser language isn’t supported, your banner will display in your default language.
2. Via WordPress plugin: Install the GetTerms WordPress plugin via the WordPress Plugin Directory to get access to all of your policies as handy short codes as well as embedding your Cookie Consent Widget in a single click.
3. Via Google Tag Manager: Install and manage your banner using our Tag Template found in the Google Tag Manager Community Template Gallery. Note: This will prevent script blocking from working reliably.

5. Manage your cookies

While you’ve been setting up and installing your banner, our cookie scanner has been crawling your website, finding any active cookies and trackers and categorizing them for you. Any cookies found on the Cookie Management page, under Active Cookies, will be displayed on the second layer of your cookie banner.

You can add, edit, and remove any active cookie using the cookie editor.

1. 1. Click the dropdown of any of the cookie categories to display the active cookies belonging to the category.
   2. Click Add a cookie to add any cookies not found by our scanner. Cookies behind a login page or cart page may not be visible to our scanner.
   3. Click the pencil icon to open the cookie editor.
      1. Key: The unique name belonging to the cookie (e.g. _ga)
      2. Category: The category belonging to the tracking cookie
      3. Data controller: The name of the company responsible for creating the cookie, e.g. Google
      4. Platform: The platform the cookie is tied to
      5. Domain: The domain that sets the cookie; usually this is your domain
      6. Retention period: How long the cookie stays saved in the user’s browser before expiring
      7. Description: A description of what the cookie does, e.g. setting an ID that identifies unique users

1. Click Save to save any edits made to a cookie.
2. Click Back to report to go back to the Cookie Management page.
3. Click the red subtract/delete button to remove a cookie from the active cookies and place it in the inactive cookies section. Inactive cookies won’t be displayed on your consent banner.
   1. Clicking Restore will place the cookie back in the active cookies section.
   2. Clicking the trash can will remove the cookie from the report entirely. Note: If the cookie is detected in a later scan, it will be re-added to the inactive cookies section automatically.