Consent Mode v2: Basic vs Advanced (and Regional Defaults)

Once you've grasped Consent Mode v2, the next decision is which implementation to run: basic or advanced. They behave very differently under a "reject," and the choice affects how much data you recover. This guide compares them and covers the regional defaults most setups get wrong.

Quick recap: what Consent Mode does

Consent Mode adjusts how Google tags behave based on four signals, analytics_storage, ad_storage, ad_user_data, ad_personalization. You set denied defaults before tags load, and your CMP pushes an update when the user chooses. The basic-vs-advanced choice is about what happens before that update, under denial.

Basic vs advanced

The practical difference: under a rejection, basic sends nothing, while advanced sends anonymous, cookieless pings that let Google model the conversions it can't observe. Advanced usually recovers more data, at the cost of more setup and careful verification.

Regional defaults (the part people miss)

You don't have to apply the same defaults everywhere. Set stricter denied defaults for regulated regions (EEA/UK) and, where appropriate, more permissive defaults elsewhere, using the region parameter.

// Stricter default for the EEA, a different default elsewhere
gtag('consent', 'default', {
  ad_storage: 'denied', ad_user_data: 'denied',
  ad_personalization: 'denied', analytics_storage: 'denied',
  region: ['ES','FR','DE','IT','GB'],   // regulated regions
  wait_for_update: 500
});

gtag('consent', 'default', {
  analytics_storage: 'granted', ad_storage: 'granted',
  ad_user_data: 'granted', ad_personalization: 'granted'
  // no region = applies everywhere else
});

url_passthrough and ads_data_redaction

• url_passthrough, passes ad click ids through the URL when cookies are denied, so some attribution survives.
• ads_data_redaction, further redacts ad identifiers when ad_storage is denied, tightening privacy under rejection.

Which should you choose?

If you run meaningful Google Ads spend and want to recover modeled conversions, advanced is usually worth the extra setup. If you want the simplest, most conservative posture and can accept collecting nothing under denial, basic is fine. Either way: denied defaults first, all four signals, and verify in the Consent tab of Tag Assistant.