Do You Know About Consent Mode?

Consent mode was initiated by Google as a way to conform to privacy regulations. Passed in May 2018, the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has had huge consequences for businesses. It also has had consequences for website owners and marketers too. One of its basic principles calls for transparency and fairness within the way personal data is collected and processed.

Many websites will prompt you with a pop-up notification asking you to agree with their use of cookies. This is because of GDPR. Cookies are little bits of data that help store information about a specific user’s session. 

Alone, cookies don’t reveal much. However, on a larger scale, they help businesses make more informed, analytical, and smart decisions to drive success. 

But they also mean collecting the personal information of everyone that visits the website. Whether or not this was okay is exactly what the GDPR aimed to solve. Now, businesses and advertisers in Europe must contend with a much smaller data pool to optimize their ads. 

To combat this, Google has introduced conversion modeling through their Consent Mode. It poses a way for advertisers to effectively recover a huge portion of lost conversion data. As such, it optimizes their ads in such a way that prioritizes the privacy of website visitors.

But, first things first…

What exactly is consent mode?

Consent mode was released back in September 2020. It provides a solution for advertisers to comply with a more privacy-centric internet. Through new Google tags, advertisers can customize exactly how cookies are managed for advertising purposes. This way, if a user does not accept the website’s cookies, their data will not be recorded. 

It should be noted, though, that consent mode is not the same thing as consent management platforms. Consent management platforms help websites with the process of actually obtaining cookies in accordance with user consent. 

Why is this data important for your ads?

Today’s world is increasingly digital. More and more people are turning towards eCommerce when it comes to shopping for their goods. This means websites are becoming even more of an important tool for advertisers. On a large enough scale, the data they can collect is invaluable for advertisers. More data can improve the effectiveness of their ads and generate more conversions. There is so much information that cookies can gleam from a user. Whether it be what device they’re using, what websites they’ve visited, and much more. All this helps to tailor the advertising experience to them. 

Regulations like the GDPR have had a negative effect on how well advertisers can understand the conversion process. This can disrupt the clarity of the conversion funnel of the product they’re trying to market. Without such comprehensive data, optimizing advertisements is more difficult and less accurate. If you’ve been running digital advertising campaigns in Europe for a while, you’ve probably noticed the affects of this. 

How does Google use consent mode in the conversion modeling process?

The goal of conversion modeling through consent mode is to provide an option to get some amount of useful data. This is all while still working with privacy-friendly consent management platforms. 

As of April 2021, consent mode wasl be able to model conversions. It could recover “lost data” that would have otherwise been measured when users’ cookies were automatically tracked. Google can then aggregate this anonymous data. Then Google models up to 70% of the ad-click-to-conversion journeys that may have taken place. Google themselves has said that results may vary depending on the consent ratio and other advertiser differences. This can be a great help for those looking to optimize and improve the effectiveness of their ad campaigns. Advertisers will be able to see and distinguish between observed conversions and modeled conversions. In addition, one can see the total number of conversions. 

FAQs

Is Google consent mode compliant?

When utilizing services like Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager (GTM), and Google Ads, Google Consent Mode offers a new approach for your website to track conversions and gain analytics insights while being entirely GDPR compliant.

Does modeling in consent mode recover 100% of the data?

According to data from Google Ads, more than 70% of ad-click-to-conversion trips that were lost as a consequence of user cookie consent decisions are often recovered through conversion modeling using Consent Mode.

Does Google Analytics suffer from cookie consent?

In order to identify users, their activities, and qualities, Google Analytics, including Universal Analytics, normally employs cookies and necessitates cookie consent. This implies that if a person completely rejects cookies, they won’t be identified as a visitor at all by analytics.

How do cookies affect SEO?

Google uses cookies to remember user preferences. The preference data helps personalize adverts. Users will not have ads tailored to their interests if they choose not to accept cookies.

Final thoughts: What does this mean for businesses in HK and beyond?

For businesses operating locally in Hong Kong, this remains more of a concern, at least for the time being. If you have potential customers in Europe or sell in an international market, this is something that needs to be taken into account.

Consent mode can greatly increase the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns. Therefore total number of conversions can increase. Google’s conversion modeling through consent mode is effectively the light at the end of the tunnel. 

First Page has years of experience running digital marketing campaigns around the world. If you want to learn more about running Google ad campaigns, get in touch with our specialists today.