Consent Mode v2: Basic vs Advanced, and Which One Your Lawyer Picks

Since March 2024, Google has required Consent Mode v2 signals for advertising measurement and personalization on traffic from the European Economic Area. The choice every site faces is basic or advanced, and it is a legal decision wearing a technical costume. Your lawyer picks it. Your developer implements it.

What v2 added

Consent Mode is the framework that sits between a cookie banner and Google's tags, translating a visitor's consent choice into signals that Google Analytics 4, Google Ads, and other Google services understand. The original version handled two consent types: ad_storage, for advertising cookies, and analytics_storage, for analytics cookies. Version 2 added two more: ad_user_data, which controls whether user data can be sent to Google for advertising at all, and ad_personalization, which controls whether that data can power personalized ads and remarketing.

The update was driven by the EU's Digital Markets Act, which designated Google as a gatekeeper and imposed strict rules on how it handles user consent. Google responded by tightening its EU User Consent Policy and requiring advertisers to pass granular consent signals for every EEA user interaction. The requirement targets EEA, UK, and Swiss traffic, and it applies even when the business itself is based outside the EU, because EU law follows the user, not the company.

A banner that only blocks Google scripts is v1 behavior at best. A v2-compatible banner has to actively fire all four signals, not just block or unblock scripts. A site that withholds the tag until the visitor clicks Accept, then injects it, sends Google no consent state at all, and for EEA traffic Google has no record that the visitor agreed to anything.

Basic vs advanced

In basic mode, Google's tags stay blocked until the visitor consents. If someone clicks Reject All, nothing is sent to Google: no cookies, no pings, no signals. It is the simplest and most private option, and it means you measure nothing from non-consenting users whatsoever. Google applies a general model to estimate some declined conversions, but the model is generic, not specific to your account. Related reading: Your Consent Banner Costs More Than the Tags It Is Supposed to Gate.

In advanced mode, Google's tags load immediately, but in a restricted state, with all four parameters defaulted to denied. Before consent is granted, and if consent is denied, the tags send cookieless pings to Google's servers. Google uses those pings to build a model specific to your account, which recovers more of the missing conversions than basic mode does. The trade is that advanced mode sends data before consent, and whether those cookieless pings constitute personal data processing under Article 5(3) of the ePrivacy Directive is still debated among data protection professionals.

The modeling has a threshold. Google Analytics 4 requires at least 1,000 daily users with analytics_storage granted for seven of the last 28 days, plus at least 1,000 daily events with analytics_storage denied for seven days, before behavioral modeling activates. A small site that implements advanced mode and expects modeled conversions on day one will wait, because the model needs volume to learn from.

How to tell which one you are running

Requests sent under consent mode carry a gcs value. G100 means ad and analytics storage are both denied. G111 means both are granted. Open the network tab, filter for Google requests, and read the gcs parameter before clicking anything on the banner. If there is no gcs value at all, consent mode is not implemented, and for EEA traffic Google is already limiting what that traffic can do in Ads: audience building, ad personalization, and parts of conversion measurement.

The decision itself belongs with legal counsel, because it turns on how your regulator reads the ePrivacy Directive and how much modeled conversion data is worth to your business. The technical team implements it, but the team that signs off on sending cookieless pings before consent is the legal team. A developer who picks advanced mode alone is making a legal decision without a lawyer in the room. More on this: The Reject Button Is There. Finding It Is the Test..

Frequently asked questions

Does Consent Mode replace my cookie banner?

No. The banner collects consent. Consent Mode transmits it to Google's tags. You need both, and the banner has to fire all four v2 signals.

Do I need Consent Mode with US-only traffic?

Google's requirement targets EEA, UK, and Swiss traffic. A US-only site can skip it, but sites with any European visitors should set denied defaults for EEA countries using the region parameter.

What is G100 vs G111?

The gcs value on Google requests. G100 means ad and analytics storage are both denied. G111 means both are granted. No gcs value means consent mode is not implemented.

How much data does modeling recover?

Advanced mode recovers more than basic, because its model is specific to your account rather than generic. But modeling needs at least 1,000 daily consented users for seven of the last 28 days before it activates.