Google Consent Mode
Google Consent Mode is a setting that tells Google's tracking snippets how to behave based on whether the visitor said yes to being tracked. Those snippets are small bits of code on your site that send data to Google Ads and Google Analytics. If the visitor says no, Google gets a limited signal instead of a cookie (a small file stored in the browser to remember a visit), and it guesses some of the missing sales. The guess is a model, not a counted purchase.
Theodor Lindfors, Founding Marketer ·
How Consent Mode works
Your consent management platform (CMP, the company that runs the cookie banner, the pop-up that asks whether the site may store cookies) captures the choice. Consent Mode passes that choice to Google tags as a set of states. Basic implementations block tags entirely until consent is given. Advanced implementations load tags but send cookieless pings when consent is denied, which is what feeds modeling.
Let's take a shoe workshop in Mexico as an example. They make leather shoes and sell them online to Mexico and the United States. The shoe workshop also runs Google Ads, which can be shown to people in the European Economic Area (EEA), so Google expects Consent Mode to be in place.
Let's take a shoe workshop in Mexico as an example. They make leather shoes and sell them online to Mexico and the United States. A visitor in Spain lands on example.com. The consent banner asks whether Google may store cookies (small files used to remember the visit). The visitor taps Reject. With advanced Consent Mode, the Google tag still sends a ping that has no cookie attached. Google cannot see who the visitor is. If the visitor later buys a $180 pair, Google may include a modeled conversion in the report, an estimate that a purchase like this happened, not a counted event with the visitor's name on it.
Lemonado is not a consent management platform (CMP) and does not collect consent for you. That belongs to your consent management platform and your legal team.
Why Consent Mode matters
In markets with strong consent requirements, a large share of visitors decline. Without Consent Mode those conversions simply vanish from conversion tracking (the setup that tells Google a sale happened), so campaigns look worse than they are and bidding gets worse too.
If a shoe workshop ignored Consent Mode while advertising into the European Economic Area (EEA), Google Ads can lose audience features and modeled conversions. The shop would still sell shoes. The ads account would look like it had stopped working.
How to read modeled conversions
Modeled conversions are estimates, not counted events. Modeled conversions are reasonable estimates, and they are still estimates. Keep that in mind before you make a fine-grained budget decision from a small shoe workshop campaign whose numbers are mostly modeled.
Modeling also needs enough traffic to work. Small accounts get less benefit, and the shortfall shows up as a gap against your own order data. If the shop processed 50 orders and Google reports 38 observed conversions plus 9 modeled conversions, write both numbers on the slide.
Common Consent Mode mistakes
- Installing a consent banner (the pop-up that asks whether the site may store cookies) but never passing the consent state to the tags.
- Deploying basic Consent Mode and expecting advanced Consent Mode modeling.
- Treating a modeled number as an observed one in a board report.
- Assuming Consent Mode makes you compliant. Consent Mode reflects consent, it does not obtain it.
Lemonado
How Lemonado helps around Consent Mode
Consent Mode changes what Google tags send, which changes what Google reports, including modeled conversions. Lemonado keeps those numbers next to your own analytics and revenue, so a modeled series does not quietly replace counted sales.