Pick the wrong Consent Management Platform, and you’ll either (a) fail an audit and face fines, or (b) cripple your data and marketing stack by losing visibility into half your visitors.
Most CMPs force you to choose between compliance and insight – but the right one lets you have both.
Here’s how to choose a CMP that keeps you compliant and commercially sharp:
- Fundamental compliance functionality
- User experience
- Platform and integration capabilities
- Industry-specific needs
- Business objectives and scalability
- Analytics, reporting, and optimization
1. Fundamental compliance functionality
Before you compare features or explore integrations, make sure the CMP does what it’s supposed to: help you manage cookies and ensure your compliance.
At minimum, your CMP must cover the laws that apply where your visitors are. Anything less leaves you exposed.
If you’re based in the EU – or receive traffic from the region – you need to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the ePrivacy Directive.
Many CMPs treat GDPR as a baseline, which is helpful because it’s one of the strictest frameworks in the world. If your CMP is GDPR-compliant, you’re usually in a good position to meet the requirements of other laws too.
Depending on your audience, you may also need support for:
Other non-negotiables in this category include:
Clear and user-friendly consent choices
Consent must be freely given, informed, and easy to withdraw.
Make sure the CMP supports:
- Granular choices by category (analytics, marketing, etc.).
- Clear “Accept all” and “Reject all” buttons.
- A straightforward way to access and change consent later.
- An explanation of what cookies are used for, in simple language.
Avoid dark patterns or nudging. They might increase opt-in rates short-term, but they undermine trust and could land you in legal trouble.
Pre-consent cookie blocking
Pre-consent cookie blocking is at the heart of compliance. Under laws like GDPR, no non-essential cookies can be placed on a user’s device until they’ve actively given consent.
Your CMP should:
- Automatically block all non-essential cookies (like analytics, advertising, tracking) before consent.
- Control third-party scripts through integrations with tag managers or direct script blocking.
- Ensure no data flows to vendors like Google or Meta before the user opts in.
Consent logging and audit trails
Regulations like GDPR require you to prove that valid consent was given, and to store that proof securely.
The CMP should maintain:
- Detailed consent records for each user, including date/time, consent status, and purposes accepted or rejected.
- Versioning of consent text and banner layouts, so you can match a user’s consent to what they saw at the time.
- Secure, encrypted storage with retention policies aligned to compliance needs.
- Easy export or audit access, so you can respond quickly to regulator requests or legal reviews.
Cookie scans and management
Cookies are dynamic, and new ones can appear anytime – whether from a third-party script or a marketing campaign. Regular scanning and categorization are essential for staying compliant and transparent.
A reliable CMP should offer:
- Automated cookie scanning on a recurring schedule (daily, weekly, or monthly).
- Clear classification of cookies by type: strictly necessary, functional, performance, marketing, and the like.
- Editable cookie declarations so you can add descriptions, durations, and purposes to custom cookies, or cookies that cannot be classified automatically.
- Automatic updates to your cookie policy, synced with the latest scan results.
Any CMP that checks all these boxes, more or less helps you automate your cookie compliance.
Want to see if your current setup would pass an audit?
2. User experience
A banner is one of the first things people see on your site. Confuse them, and you lose trust and data. Good CMP UX balances clarity, control, and brand alignment.
Here’s what to look for:
Banner design and customization
Your banner should look like part of your brand, not a default pop-up from a third-party tool.
A good CMP lets you:
- Use your own colors, fonts, and logo.
- Choose from different layouts (popup, footer, center overlay, etc.).
- Edit the text to match your tone of voice.
- Add custom buttons or links to policies, preferences, or opt-outs.
Mobile-first design
Your CMP must work as well on a phone as it does on a laptop. Many visitors will only ever see the mobile version.
Check that:
- The banner is fully responsive.
- Buttons and links are easy to tap.
- The layout adjusts for smaller screens.
- No content is blocked or broken.
Accessibility (WCAG compliance)
Your site needs to be accessible – and so does your cookie banner.
Look for:
- Compatibility with screen readers.
- Keyboard navigation (tab-through options).
- Sufficient contrast ratios and font sizes.
3. Platform and integration capabilities
Your CMP shouldn’t sit in a silo. It needs to work across your websites, apps, tools, and integrate smoothly with the systems your teams already use.
Here’s what to consider when evaluating platform fit and technical flexibility:
Cross-platform support
Your users don’t just visit your website on a desktop. They might come from mobile devices or apps – and your CMP needs to handle all of it.
Look for support across:
- Web (desktop and mobile).
- Native mobile apps (iOS and Android).
- AMP pages, where standard scripts may be restricted.
- Single-page applications (SPAs) like React or Angular.
Some CMPs also offer dedicated SDKs for mobile apps and tools to help developers implement consent flows natively.
Tag and script management
A key job of your CMP is to control when and how scripts load, especially those that drop cookies.
Make sure it can:
- Block and release tags based on user consent.
- Categorize scripts into functional groups (e.g. analytics, marketing).
- Delay or cancel scripts until the right consent is given.
- Integrate with your tag manager (like Google Tag Manager or Piwik PRO Tag Manager).
Some CMPs offer built-in script blocking tools, while others rely on your tag manager. Either approach works but the execution needs to be clear and reliable.
Integration with other tools
Your CMP should connect with the platforms that drive your marketing, data, and user experience.
Look for integrations with:
- Content management systems (CMS) like WordPress, Sitecore, or Adobe Experience Manager.
- Analytics platforms, including Google Analytics (GA4) or Piwik PRO.
- Ad tech vendors (Google Ads, Meta, programmatic platforms).
- Customer data platforms (CDPs) and data warehouses.
- Consent strings (IAB TCF 2.2 support) for compliant programmatic advertising.
Google Consent Mode v2 support
If you advertise with Google or use Google Analytics, this is a must-have.
Your CMP should support:
- Consent Mode v2 out of the box, including both ad_storage and analytics_storage settings.
- Easy integration with Google Tag Manager.
- Automatic fallback behavior when consent isn’t given.
- Event-level consent passing for server-side tagging setups.
Google Consent Mode helps you preserve some level of data collection (in aggregate) even when users decline cookies, but only if it’s implemented correctly.
4. Industry-specific needs
Different industries, different consequences. Choose a CMP that aligns with your sector’s stakes.
- Healthcare & life sciences: High legal risk. CMP must separate clinical vs. marketing consent and maintain airtight logs. A slip here = lawsuits + reputational collapse.
- Retail & ecommerce: One extra click can kill conversions. CMP must be invisible in the checkout flow.
- Media & publishing: Ad revenue depends on consent strings. Without IAB TCF v2.2 support, your inventory value tanks overnight.
- Public sector & education: Accessibility and trust first. CMP must be WCAG-compliant and offer simple, plain-language banners – or you risk public backlash.
5. Business alignment and scalability
Your CMP isn’t just a tool – it’s infrastructure. It must scale with your traffic, your teams, and future regulations.
- Scalability & performance: Slow CMP = slower site = lower conversions. Check SLAs, CDN delivery, and uptime guarantees.
- Data residency: Maybe not a concern today. Tomorrow, laws could force EU-only storage. Choose a CMP that’s already prepared.
6. Analytics: Protect compliance and preserve insight
Most CMPs protect privacy – but at a hidden cost: your data. Every time a visitor declines cookies, you lose visibility into their journey.
The result?
- Ad campaigns you can’t properly attribute.
- Customer journeys full of blind spots.
- Marketing budgets wasted on incomplete or misleading data.
For companies that rely on data-driven growth, that’s not good enough.
How Cookie Information gives you back your data
Cookie Information is the only CMP that combines native Google Consent Mode v2 support with privacy-friendly analytics built in. That means you don’t just stay compliant – you stay data-driven.
With our analytics, you can:
- Recover up to 4× more sessions with anonymous tracking, even when visitors opt out.
- Attribute 98% of your traffic accurately, so campaigns get the credit they deserve.
- Use ad personalization and remarketing in Google Ads without breaching consent rules.
- Run side by side with your current analytics solution to fill data gaps and verify accuracy.
Compliance without compromise
Choosing a CMP isn’t about chasing feature lists. It’s about protecting compliance and preserving growth. Most CMPs stop at compliance and leave you blind. Cookie Information keeps you compliant – and gives you back the insight your business runs on.
Try Cookie Information free for 14 days and see how much insight you’ve been missing.