Consent Mode v2 Checker: are you sending consent signals?

No signup, nothing stored. Checking somebody else's site is fine: this only reads what every visitor's browser already downloads.

This checks the page your address serves to a normal visitor, as a plain request that does not run the page's scripts, and it opens any Google Tag Manager container it finds and reads inside it. Nothing is stored, no signup is asked for, and the answer is the same one you would get by opening the page source yourself with more patience than most people have.

A cookie banner is not Consent Mode

This is the misunderstanding that catches nearly everyone. A banner asks the visitor and stores the answer. Consent Mode is the separate step that passes that answer to Google's tags, as ad_storage, analytics_storage, ad_user_data and ad_personalization. A site can have a beautiful, fully compliant banner and send no consent signal at all, and from the outside the two are indistinguishable.

What v2 added, and why it was not optional

Version 2 added ad_user_data and ad_personalization on top of the original two parameters. Google made them a requirement for advertisers serving EEA and UK traffic in March 2024, and from July 2025 it began switching features off for accounts still not sending them: remarketing, conversion tracking and demographic reporting for that traffic. It does not arrive as a warning. It looks like your campaigns slowly getting worse for reasons nobody can point at.

What this check can see, and what it cannot

It reads the page and, where there is a tag manager, the container behind it, and it looks for a consent call and for those two parameters by name. Finding them is solid evidence, because neither word appears on a page for any other reason. Not finding them is not the same as them being absent: most consent platforms set them from their own script, loaded from their servers, and no checker reading page source can see inside that, including this one. So a missing result here is a reason to go and look in the dataLayer, never a verdict on its own.

Basic and advanced, and why the choice matters

In basic mode, tags do not load at all until consent is given, so a visitor who ignores the banner is completely invisible. In advanced mode, tags load and send cookieless pings that carry no identifiers, which lets Google model the conversions it cannot observe. Advanced recovers substantially more reporting, which is why it is the usual recommendation, but it is a decision to take with whoever advises you on data protection rather than one to copy from a blog.

How to verify it properly

Open Chrome DevTools, go to the Console, and type dataLayer before touching the banner. You should see a consent default entry with the four parameters set to denied. Accept the banner, look again, and you should see a consent update flipping them to granted. If the default entry is missing, the signal is not being sent regardless of what your consent platform's dashboard reports.

Common questions

Do I need Consent Mode if my customers are all in the United States?

Google's requirement applies to traffic from the EEA, the UK and Switzerland. If genuinely none of your visitors are there, it does not apply to you. Check your Analytics by country before concluding that, because a surprising number of local businesses have a small European tail and the requirement follows the visitor, not the business.

My consent platform says it is enabled. Why does this say no?

Two possibilities, and they are opposite. Either the platform is loading after Google's tags, so the consent default arrives too late to matter, which is a real fault and the commonest one. Or it is setting consent from its own script, which this check cannot read, in which case nothing is wrong and this tool simply cannot see it. The dataLayer check above tells you which, and it is worth two minutes before anyone changes a setting.

Will Consent Mode reduce my reported conversions?

In basic mode, usually yes, because tags stop firing for anyone who has not consented. In advanced mode, reporting typically recovers a good part of that through modelling. Where a banner was already blocking tags, those conversions were already missing. What changes is whether you can see an estimate of them.

Is this a legal compliance check?

No, and it should not be treated as one. It reports one technical fact: whether a consent signal is being sent to Google's tags. Whether your overall setup meets GDPR or any other law is a question for someone qualified to answer it.