Beginning in March 2024, UK websites, along with the EU will be required to have complied with GCM V2 to continue using Google Products such as Google Ads and other data processing services provided by big tech.

What does it mean?

Google have recently announced that they are ‘sunsetting cookies to provide a more privacy-centric user experience’

Ha ha, yeah right!

The truth sounds more like – Google and other big Tech companies have been TOLD they can no longer run riot with user’s data and they can’t serve their ads to an unsuspecting, un-consenting audience. All courtesy of the Digital Markets Act – now in force in the EU Member states and very shortly here in the UK.

Google has been told they must collect user’s “explicit consent” to share their data – enter Google Consent Mode V2.

What does it mean to business owners?

Two things. Firstly – it’s not that tricky. It means you have to get rid of the cookies banner on your website and replace it with a banner which has more explicit language on it and allows the user on your site to simply say “yes” or “no”

If a user says “yes, Mr Website owner – feel free to hit me up with your ads” then their data (where they came from, where they live, how long they were on your site, previous browsing data…) will then make its merry way to your Google Analytics account, courtesy of a trigger in Tag Manager (GA4) and Google ads will be able to access the data as per from there.

 

If they say “no” – you’ll never know about the visit and that user is lost to you forever 👋

You won’t be able to see the visit in analytics

You won’t see any sales from those users in analytics or ads

You won’t be able to retarget those people

 

How do you do it? 👨‍💻

You can do it long hand with your own custom code or you can also find custom code which is shared by Google (drop us a line if you want a link to that)

Or you can do it the smart way and find a Google CMP (Consent Management Partner) – (search for that phrase)

The CMPs are well ahead of the game and have made Google Consent Mode V2 compliance software for all sites. They’ve even configured a custom Google Tag for Tag Manager – the cheeky little monkeys!

The process you will be guided to follow by most partners is;

Create an account with a Google CMP Partner

Generate the code for the site header and install on your site

Generate the code for Tag Manager and install the custom tag

The end.

Told you it was easy.

What happens if users opt out? 👀

 

This is a good one and there are no reliable answers yet – just speculation.

About 2 years ago, my sad-self found this legislation and had a read through and realised that Smart / Pmax campaigns might have a shelf life and that marketers might have to manually target users in the future.

That might not be true – but it also might.

The short term view is that we won’t be able to see user’s data or retarget to those people. The long term view is that without user data, behaviour and transactions – how will Google’s AI campaigns learn?

 

Google plans to backfill missing user data by implementing ‘Data Modelling’ – by using known existing user data and finding, for want of a better description, a ‘lookalike’ audience.

We don’t know how well this will work.

I believe that we will see a reduction in performance after March in accounts reliant on Pmax.

What is if 90% of users decline to share their behaviour online?

We don’t know. How can Google data model that much missing data?

The future of AI campaigns is at the mercy of legislation. This is the first and rather heavy step towards the redaction of the intelligence they use to target audiences.

 

My prediction is that we will see more legislation against big tech, more legislation in favour of privacy and a reduction in the capacity to automate advertising.

If anything, it might end up being a harder job for marketers. But that’s not a bad thing.


Contact us for help implementing Google Consent Mode