The updated European AVG law makes it mandatory to ask your visitors' permission to use cookies. Many people click away the cookie notification and therefore also refuse that website's cookies. Therefore, an opportunity to collect data disappears. Google Consent Mode is a potential solution to this problem. This is a new feature that still allows you to track data from your visitors completely AVG-proof.
The usefulness of data
First party cookies make a Web site work. For example, they make sure the products in your shopping cart are remembered when you return later. Third party cookies are - as the name implies - cookies containing information from third parties. These cookies are needed to get information from other websites that gives you a picture of the route the consumer takes. This allows you to properly target ads that fit the online behavior of that consumer. With the disappearance of third-party cookies, the possibility of collecting this data disappears.
So the updated AVG law was a bit of a shock for many e-commerce companies. Without that data, you can't capture the full customer journey of your customers, which is exactly what you want. So it has a big impact on the effectiveness of online marketing campaigns. Read more about the disappearance of third-party cookies and its impact on e-commerce here.
AVG-proof data collection
Who gets which cookies?
Google Consent Mode uses two variables: analytics_storage and ad_storage. These are added to your website's datalayer. Analytics is used to manage statistical cookies and Ad for marketing cookies. The feature receives information about the consent a visitor has given and responds accordingly.
- If your visitor gives permission, your tags will work in the usual way; Google Ads cookies, Floodlights and Google Analytics cookies will work as you're used to.
- If your visitor does not give permission, Google Consent Mode issues so-called pings. This transmits the event, but does not transmit cookies or other ID data. The data includes visitor timestamps, user agent, referrer and ad click information.
So the data you receive through Google Consent Mode are anonymous but still usable through conversion modeling.
A complete picture of your data
Consent Mode applies conversion modeling at times when the path between ad interactions and conversions cannot/may not be measured. Conversion modeling uses machine learning to analyze observable data and historical trends. For example, it compares the observable customer journeys of visitors who have consented to cookies with the journeys of visitors who have not consented. In this way, a theoretical conversion path can still be created for the anonymous visitors. And that in turn provides a more complete and accurate database, which you can use for conversion and campaign optimization.
A Google-only feature
Consent Mode only works within Google's platforms such as; Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Google Ads, Gtag, Floodlight and Conversion Linker. It works quickly and is easy to use. Google Consent Mode has no impact (yet) on other ad cookies on Facebook or LinkedIn, for example. These companies are currently working on a solution themselves, and in the best scenario, that solution can be integrated with Google Consent Mode.
Crossborder cookies
What does this mean for your business internationally? Since privacy is becoming increasingly important worldwide, the above also plays out in all other European countries. For example, Germany is ahead in this field and it is already much more difficult to gain good insight into the conversion paths of visitors. On average (already now) in Germany only 75% of the conversion value is measured. So a solution for this can be consentmode but also serverside tracking is very important to implement in Germany, read more about this in our blog.
The features and restrictions we have described here apply to all member states of the European Union. Do you have customers worldwide or want to expand outside the EU? Then you have to deal with different cookie legislation. You can compare the different types of cookie legislation here.
