What does Consent Mode v2 mean for Google Ads?
Consent Mode has been impacting the data quality of advertising since it was introduced in 2020. It’s a mechanism ensuring the consent signals you’re collecting for online data are automatically communicated to Google’s advertising platforms for web & app. In turn, Google’s algorithms adjust their behaviour accordingly in order to respect these choices, but also enable conversion modeling to retrieve lost conversions. This helps advertisers recover some of the data lost when users reject cookies, improving the quality of the bidding algorithms and measurement capabilities.
That’s not new. What is new is Consent Mode v2, introduced in late November 2023.
Historically, Consent Mode has been using two parameters to send vital information to Google Ads: analytics_storage and ad_storage, which transmitted whether or not users gave consent to analytics cookie access and, respectively, ads cookie access.
Consent Mode v2 is introducing two new parameters: ad_user_data and ad_personalization, which are more specific to Google and whether the users give consent to data being sent to Google Ads, and respectively whether personalized advertising (remarketing) can be enabled.
When these two new parameters are not ‘granted’, it will not be possible to build specific audiences and run personalized advertising on Google Ads in the EEA region.
In order to maintain the quality of your audiences and measurement in Google Ads, you will therefore need to make sure you are implementing Consent Mode v2 correctly before March 2024.
Before diving deeper, it’s important to highlight that gathering valid user consents is a prerequisite in order to implement Consent Mode v2 and preserve your audiences and measurement. If you don’t already have a compliant consent management solution (cookie banner) in place, this is the first step you need to take.
How does Consent Mode v2 impact bidding and measurement?
The quality of the data you feed in your bidding and optimization tools is vital for effective marketing. Still, users are the ones having the final say in whether their data can be shared and used, or not. The accuracy of the data insights Google Ads has at its disposal is therefore highly dependent on 1) users’ consent choices, and 2) whether you implemented Basic or Advanced Consent Mode v2.
1) How do users’ consent choices impact your audiences and measurement?
When landing on your website, users are met with a cookie banner where they state their consent choices. When consent is granted for all the four parameters of Consent Mode v2 mentioned previously, then Google will observe data as normal and feed the signals to your Google Ads campaigns. Accuracy level 100%.
When consent is denied for one or more parameters, the Google tags /SDK will adjust behaviour according to the choices made. This means that limited or even no data at all will be shared with Google Ads when users decline consent – depending on the way Consent Mode v2 is implemented.
Your conversion data will, in this scenario, only contain insights about users that granted consent. This can significantly skew your campaign evaluation and budget allocation decisions, depending on how high your opt-in rates are (some industries can miss out on more than 50% of the data!)
2) What is the difference between Basic and Advanced Consent Mode v2?
With Basic Consent Mode implementation, the tags are blocked and no information is collected for analytics or ads purposes until consent choices are made (they unblock if and only when consent is granted). That means that the session is not even recorded unless the user gives consent.
With Advanced Consent Mode implementation, there is some information collected and shared about the users before consent choices are made. It is shared in the form of cookieless pings, without storing any personal or identifiable information about the user.
What happens if I don’t implement Consent Mode v2?
Without Consent Mode v2, no data about new EEA users will be captured by your advertising platforms (Google Ads, GA4, etc.) after March 2024. This will affect your audience lists and remarketing, the ability to run personalized advertising, and your measurement and reporting in this region.
Your bidding algorithms will run based on inaccurate and incomplete data, and your budget will be spent much less effectively.
If you’re running, for example, Maximize conversions with a target CPA, it is very important that conversions are measured as accurately as possible for the algorithm to function properly and bid effectively. When fewer conversions are registered (without Consent Mode v2), the strategy will under-evaluate some opportunities, leading to inaccurate bidding and budgets being used in less profitable ways.
What additional insights does Consent Mode offer?
With Consent Mode, your conversion data is enriched through conversion modelling for the users that do not grant consent. Using the insights gathered from consented user journeys, Google’s AI algorithm will then predict conversion data for unconsented users, adding uncontestable value to the accuracy of your measurements and bidding algorithms.
Is it 100% accurate? No.
Is it significantly better than optimizing in blindness based only on data from consented uses? Without doubt.
How do I implement Consent Mode v2?
The first step is to have a consent banner on your website that respects user choices. The easiest way to get started with this is to choose a Google Certified CMP partner like Cookie Information’s consent management platform (free to try for 14 days!).
Once you have a compliant consent banner in place, Consent Mode v2 can be implemented. If you choose a certified Google partner, implementation becomes much easier. Cookie Information has a native integration with Consent Mode v2 and can offer all the support and documentation needed for you to start measuring effectively in no time.
Be ready for March 2024 and make sure your advertising has all the insights it needs to function properly – start with Consent Mode v2 today.
