Consent Mode and GA4: measurement that respects consent

Consent Mode communicates a user's choice to Google tools and adjusts tag behaviour. It does not obtain consent for a business or replace a correct banner, policy and decision about the legal basis for processing.

Start with purposes and categories

We establish which technologies operate, for what purpose and under which consent category. Banner text should reflect real behaviour. Acceptance, refusal and detailed settings must be available and stored according to the adopted policy.

Set state before measurement

Google documentation requires setting a default consent state before commands that send measurement data, followed by an update after the user's choice. We verify execution order, including when the consent platform loads asynchronously.

Documentation: Google Tag Platform.

Separate analytics and advertising

We examine analytics_storage, ad_storage and the required signals concerning advertising user data and personalisation. One combined switch may not reflect the actual choice. GA4 and advertising systems are reviewed separately.

Test every path

In a clean session, we test no decision, acceptance, refusal, partial choice, a settings change and the next page. We record consent state and network requests. A visible banner alone does not prove correct tag behaviour.

Maintain the setup

A new tag, container, advertising integration or banner rebuild needs another test. We document the version, region, scenario and result. Technical verification is paired with a current legal assessment for the process.