Google Consent Mode checklist to meet Google’s EU privacy requirements

As of March 2024, Google has new requirements for compliance with European data privacy regulations and enforcement of their EU user consent policy. These requirements apply to third-party companies using Google services for online advertising.

Download our checklist to learn what you need to do to obtain and signal valid user consent to meet Google’s requirements and safeguard your advertising campaigns.

Google Consent Mode (GCM) is a solution that interacts with your CMP’s consent banner. When user consent is obtained via the banner, GCM signals the consent information to Google services, enabling tags to adjust their behavior to respect user choice, e.g. for personalized advertising.

As of March 2024, Google is requiring companies using Google advertising services like Google Ads, Google Analytics, and/or the Google Marketing Platform in the EU/EEA and UK to use Google Consent Mode v2 (the latest version) with a Google-certified consent management platform (CMP), like Usercentrics CMP.

Companies must signal valid user consent to Google via Consent Mode in order to use personalization features to serve ads.

Learn more in our Google Consent Mode Resource Hub.

With the latest version of Consent Mode (v2), Google has introduced two new parameters. This enables signaling of consent information for personalized advertising.

Usercentrics CMP has Google Consent Mode integrated and activated by default, so when users’ consent choices are received, they are sent to Google to control tags or SDKs and adjust their behavior to meet data privacy requirements.

Google Consent Mode also enables privacy-compliant modeling to recover lost conversions when users do not provide consent.

Currently Consent Mode supports the following Google services:

• Google Analytics
• Google Ads (Google Ads Conversion Tracking and Remarketing)
• Floodlight
• Conversion Linker

Google introduced its EU user consent policy in 2015. It’s been updated several times to meet evolving regulatory requirements, like those from the GDPR, ePrivacy Directive, and Digital Markets Act (DMA).

Google announced in early 2024 that they would be increasing enforcement of the EU user consent policy. This is to enable the company to comply with data privacy regulations, including DMA enforcement.

Don’t risk your ad revenue. Download our Google Consent Mode checklist now!