Consent management set up end to end: a banner visitors can understand, Google Consent Mode, and every tag and form wired to respect the choice, by region where the rules differ.
Most cookie banners are decoration. The banner appears, the visitor clicks, and the tags behind it fire exactly as they did before. That’s the worst of both: the site looks compliant, isn’t, and the business has no idea which of its numbers were collected with permission.
Doing it properly means three things working together. The banner records a real choice. Google Consent Mode and Tag Manager hold every tag to that choice. And the choice travels with the visitor, so a form sent to your CRM or a conversion sent to an ad platform carries the same permission the browser tags did.
Set up well, consent costs you less data than you’d expect. Consent Mode lets Google model what it can’t observe, server-side events can still be sent where the visitor agreed, and you stop losing whole campaigns to tags that were blocked for the wrong reason.
What fires before a visitor has chosen, what ignores the choice, and what each tag is sending.
A consent tool, or a banner built into the site, with clear categories and regional rules where they differ.
Google Consent Mode set up in Tag Manager, with sensible defaults for each region.
Every tag held to the visitor’s choice, and that choice passed with enquiries into your CRM.
Conversions sent from the server only where advertising consent was given.
Each choice tested tag by tag, and a record of what fires when, for whoever asks.
Deliverables
Where AI comes in
AI coding tools help build the site-side consent logic and the tests that check each tag against each choice. The decisions about what counts as necessary, and what your banner says, stay with you and your legal adviser.
How I use AISomething else? Ask me directly.
That’s a question for your legal adviser, and I don’t give legal advice. What I can say is that Google and Meta increasingly expect consent signals, visitors from Europe and the UK bring their own rules with them, and it’s far easier to set up once than to retrofit.
Some, where people say no. Less than most businesses fear. Consent Mode fills part of the gap with modelling, and a clean setup stops the bigger losses caused by tags being blocked or misfiring.
Not always. A consent tool suits sites with many tags and several regions. A simpler site can have the banner built into it. I’ll recommend whichever is less to maintain.
It should, and it’s the part most setups miss. I pass the visitor’s choice along with form enquiries, and server-side conversions are only sent where advertising consent was given.
Consent Mode v2 is one part of it: the way Google’s tags learn what the visitor agreed to. Consent management is the whole job, including the banner, the other platforms’ tags, your forms and the record of what fires when.
Data
Hands-on Google Analytics consulting: a clean build or rebuild of GA4 and Google Tag Manager, with ecommerce or lead tracking, tested against a plan and documented for whoever comes next.
Read moreData
Server-side tracking with server-side Google Tag Manager and Conversions API, set up on Stape or Google Cloud. More complete data, faster pages and control over what each platform receives.
Read moreAdvertising
Conversion tracking for Google Ads and Meta Ads: enhanced conversions, the pixel, Conversions API and offline imports, set up so the platforms optimise towards real leads and sales.
Read moreTell me what’s going on. I’ll come back with questions or a scoped proposal, and I’ll say so if I’m not the right person for it.