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What Is Google Analytics Consent Mode?

An overview of a Mediavine dashboard setting that integrates Google Analytics consent with the CMP.

Over the years, the most popular request for our consent management platform(CMP) is for integration with Google Analytics.  We are very excited to announce that we have added a new feature to your Mediavine dashboard:  Google Analytics Consent Mode.   

What Is Google Analytics Consent Mode?

You may have heard of Google Consent Mode which is a framework created by Google that integrates various Google products with consent management solutions to address consent preferences.  For Mediavine websites, this is primarily a tool for Google Analytics which is why we’ve named our setting Google Analytics Consent Mode. 

What Isn’t Google Analytics Consent Mode?

Google Analytics Consent Mode is not a setting that guarantees full-site compliance.  Our ongoing recommendation is that you partner with a lawyer that specializes in privacy compliance to review your site and make site-specific recommendations.  This is a powerful tool that can help many Mediavine sites, but isn’t typically all you would need.

How Do I Turn This Setting On?

Google Analytics Consent Mode can be found in the Privacy section of your Mediavine dashboard settings.  Navigate to your site’s dashboard, click on Settings, then click on Privacy.  You’ll see a toggle for Google Analytics Consent Mode which you can turn on:

Does This Affect Reporting?

The Google-provided logic that governs this setting uses what's called behavioral modeling.  When this setting is active, Google Analytics will use machine learning to attempt and guess the browsing behavior of readers who decline to give consent.  As a result, you could see an arbitrary rise in sessions in your Google Analytics dashboard.  To account for this behavior, we pull session_start events into our dashboard instead of sessions.  In our research, this is a stable metric that tracks closely with sessions without being impacted by Google's behavioral modeling.  This means you can get the benefits of consent mode while maintaining accurate data in our dashboard.

Do I Need to Do Anything Else?

If you find that Google Analytics is triggering before the CMP has been able to gather consent, you can make additional changes to your site by following this help article.  This is a technical process that typically involves updating Javascript tags or updating numerous settings in Google Tag Manager.  Depending on the implementation, this would require working with a developer or being comfortable making technical changes on your site.