Consent Mode
Consent mode adjusts how tracking tags behave based on a visitor's cookie-consent choice, using modeled data to fill gaps when tracking is declined.
What it actually means
Consent mode is the mechanism — popularized by Google and mirrored across platforms — that ties your tracking tags to the choice a visitor makes on your cookie banner. When someone consents, tags fire normally; when they decline, tags either stay silent or send limited, cookieless pings that platforms use to statistically model the conversions they can no longer observe directly. This keeps measurement legally compliant under regulations like GDPR while preserving some optimization signal. Done wrong, tracking either fires illegally before consent or dies entirely after refusal. Done right, you comply, keep modeled conversion data flowing, and your reported numbers degrade gracefully instead of collapsing.
For a local business with a cookie banner, consent mode is the difference between losing every declined visitor from your reports and keeping a modeled estimate — so a 30% decline rate doesn't make your ads look 30% worse than they are.
Related terms
Global Privacy Control is a browser signal that automatically tells every website a visitor opts out of the sale or sharing of their personal data.
A third-party cookie is a tracking file set by a domain other than the site being visited, historically used to follow people across the web.
The Meta Pixel is a snippet of code on your website that tracks visitor actions and sends them back to Meta for measurement and ad optimization.
Attribution is the process of crediting conversions to the ads, clicks, or impressions that led to them, determining which marketing earned the result.
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