Built-In Consent Checks

① Connect your GTM container

Paste your container ID to load it into this page. It only ever runs here.

Advanced: use a specific environment

Here's the part of Consent Mode nobody tells you: for Google's own tags, you don't configure anything. GA4 and Google Ads tags carry built-in consent checks. They read analytics_storage and ad_storage on their own and change behavior, they never simply ignore consent. Denied doesn't mean silent, either: the tag still fires and sends cookieless pings, anonymous signals Google uses to model the numbers consent hid.

Consent Mode v2 added two more signals with their own built-in behavior: ad_user_data (may user data go to Google for ads at all) and ad_personalization (may it feed remarketing). Below, flip the banner between rejected and accepted, push a test event in each state, and read the table: same tag, same event, very different data leaving the browser.

Goal

See how a GA4 tag's built-in consent checks change what it sends under denied vs granted storage, with no per-tag configuration at all.

Build it in GTM

Have a GA4 event tag in your container
Any GA4 Event tag will do, for example one firing on your consent_update trigger from the last lesson, or a new one on All Pages. You are not adding consent settings to it; the point is what it does on its own.
Find the built-in checks in GTM
Open the tag and look at Advanced Settings → Consent Settings. The Built-In Consent Checks line lists what the tag type already reads (for GA4: analytics_storage, plus the ad signals on Ads tags). Read-only, always on.
Compare both states on the live page
Reject all, push the test event, then accept all and push it again. In Tag Assistant the tag fires both times; the difference is in the Consent tab and in what the hit contains (no _ga cookie under denied).

Debug in Tag Assistant

Copy this lesson's live URL and paste it into GTM Preview, that is the page Tag Assistant connects to. It has the clickable elements, so this page stays clean for reading.

In your GTM, click Preview.
Paste the live URL above and click Connect.
Interact with the live page and watch your tag fire in Tag Assistant.

What you should expect to see

In Tag Assistant your GA4 tag appears under Tags Fired in both states, that's the built-in check at work, the tag adapts instead of blocking. The Consent tab shows which signals were granted at each event, and under denied the outgoing hit carries gcs consent flags instead of a cookie-backed client ID.

Verify your container

Built it? Export your container, Admin → Export Container, choose your workspace, then drop the JSON here to check it against this lesson.

Drop your container .json here

or browse · checked in your browser, nothing is uploaded

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