The recent changes in privacy requirements made it strictly necessary for websites to receive user consent for using cookies and tracking scripts related to advertising or analytics. To help website owners comply with these requirements, Google has introduced Consent Mode. Using Consent Mode in web GTM, you can adapt tags behavior based on user consent. 

In this guide, we want to talk about consent mode, why it’s crucial to implement it, and how to use consent mode in the server Google Tag Manager container. 

Privacy regulations, mainly European Union's GDPR and California Consumer Privacy Act, restrict websites from collecting data about website visitors without their consent. Users can choose whether or not sites can gather information and use cookies using cookie banners. 

Cookies can be differentiated by the purpose: 

There is also a list of requirements on how cookie banners should look and what information contain. Below is the list of crucial GDPR requirements for cookie banners, but some countries have their own requirement as well: 

Google introduced a Consent Mode in the web Google Tag Manager container. Consent mode is a new setting in the web GTM tags that allows managing statistics and marketing cookies. This setting helps respect user decisions and customize tags behavior based on the consent status. 

When implementing consent mode in Google Tag Manager, you might want to trigger consent settings only in countries or regions where consent is required. This will help track a higher percentage of users who visit your site.