Consent Mode activation

Want the full Consent Mode v2 picture, including the framework, tradeoffs, server-side setup, and step-by-step configuration? Read the TAGGRS blog.

Consent Mode V2: main consent types

Compared to the V1, Consent Mode V2 introduces two additional consent types: ad_user_data and ad_personalization. Here is a breakdown of them all:

ad_storage
Controls advertising cookies.
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analytics_storage
Controls analytics cookies.
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ad_user_data
Governs sending user data to Google for ads (new in V2).
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ad_personalization
Governs personalized ads/remarketing (new in V2).

Why combine Consent Mode with Server-side Tracking?

Configuration

Set Consent Mode on the client side

Enable Consent Overview in GTM web container

1. Go to "Admin" → "Container Settings" in your GTM web container.
2. Under "Additional Settings", enable "Consent Overview".
3. Save the container.

Add Your CMP Tag

1. In GTM, go to "Tags" → "New".
2. Select your CMP from the Community Template Gallery.
3. Enter your CMP ID.
4. Set the trigger to "Initialization – All Pages".
5. Save the tag.

Map Consent categories

Some CMPs map their categories to Consent Mode types:

• marketing → ad_storage, ad_user_data, ad_personalization
• statistics → analytics_storage
• preferences → functionality_storage, personalization_storage

Ensure your CMP passes consent states for each required category.

Create Consent State variables

Download and import the Consent State Template from GitHub:

Get the Consent State Template by TAGGRS

In GTM, go to Templates → New → Import and upload the Consent State Template.

For each consent type (e.g., ad_personalization), create a new variable:
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Variable type: Consent State
Consent Type: e.g., ad_personalization
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Repeat for all relevant types (ad_storage, analytics_storage, etc.).

Combine Consent states in an Event settings variable

Create a new variable: Google Tag – Event settings
Variable type: Google Tag: Event settings
Add all Consent State variables as event parameters.

Add Event settings variable to your Google tag

Edit your main Google Tag in GTM.
Under Event settings variable, select the variable you just created.
This ensures consent states are sent with every event to the server container.

Configure additional Consent for custom tags

For tags without built-in consent (e.g., Facebook Pixel), go to the tag’s Consent Settings.
Enable Require additional consent for tag to fire.
Select the appropriate consent types (e.g., ad_storage for ads, analytics_storage for analytics).

Set up triggers for Consent updates

Create a custom event trigger (e.g., cookie_consent_update) to fire tags when consent changes.
Assign this trigger to tags that need to respond dynamically to consent updates.

Set Consent Mode in GTM Server Container

Expert insight
For all Google products (Google Ads, GA4 Etc. ) you don't need to add any additional settings in the Server Container. So you only need to set up the Google products in the web container.

For all other platforms such as Facebook, you can follow the following steps.

Create variables for each consent state

The data enters the server container from the web container by creating new variables. You need to do this for the consent states how they are sent to the server container.

We show this in an example for the consent state: ad_personalization.

1. Go to the server container and create a new variable.
2. Name it Consent State - Ad Personalization.
3. Choose Event Data as Variable Configuration.
4. Enter ad_personalization as Key Path because that is how it is sent from the web container to the server container.
5. Click Save.

Add Consent States Variables to required tag

You can now add Consent States variables to the tag you need. To use certain tags, it is important that marketing has been accepted by the user. If this is not the case, the tag should not be activated.

You can do this by adding the Consent State - Marketing to the appropriate Tag. Adding the newly created variable as a condition to the trigger will fire the Facebook Conversion API only when marketing cookies are accepted by the user. You can do that by following this tutorial:

This tells you that the Tag may be fired only when consent has been given for marketing cookies. This is consistent with enforcement of the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

You can then add these back to your tags. You do this again on the basis that if certain consent states are not checked then you are not allowed to fire the tags.

So you need to create different GA4 Client Triggers for the different consent states.

To which tag to add which consent?

Now comes the tricky part. You have to determine for each event under which consent it falls. As mentioned before, in the Server Container for Google products you don't need to do any additional settings in the server container.

For example, a Purchase in GA4 falls under statistics because you use it for statistics and not for marketing purposes. So then you have to make sure that the purchase trigger is set so that the statistics cookies are accepted by the visitor.