Consent mode is a setting through which measurement tools adapt to the visitor's choice in the cookie banner. If a person declines consent, the tool does not store identifiers and sends only limited, anonymous signals, or does not measure at all. The consequence is that some conversions are missing from reports, and the data are filled in through modelling based on the behaviour of users who did consent. For a company, this means two things. First, the figures in analytics and advertising systems may not match orders in the online store, and the difference needs to be understood. Second, the setup must meet legal requirements – measuring without consent where it is required is a breach, and a penalty can be imposed regardless of the technical functioning of the solution.
See also: Cookie banner, Modelled conversions, Consent to data processing.
