GOOGLE IS AUDITING YOUR CONSENT SETUP RIGHT NOW

Google periodically audits websites and apps that use its advertising services to check compliance with its EU User Consent Policy. A team of reviewers visits your site as a user would and evaluates the information presented and the consent obtained.

Common reasons for failure include missing or incomplete disclosure of how personal data is used for advertising, no clear option for users to take affirmative action to consent (such as an "I agree" button), or not explicitly stating that data will be shared with third parties. Implementing a Google-certified CMP like Cookiebot ensures your consent banner meets all of these requirements out of the box.

It means Google's audit team has identified issues with how your website collects or communicates consent for users in the European Economic Area (EEA), UK, or Switzerland. Google's first step is always to contact you and work together toward compliance.

You will receive details of the specific failure and the steps needed to fix it. However, if you do not engage or demonstrate a good-faith effort to resolve the issues within a reasonable timeframe, Google will take action on your account, including restricting access to ad personalization, remarketing, and conversion measurement features.

Google Consent Mode v1 used two parameters ('ad_storage' and 'analytics_storage') to control whether cookies related to advertising and analytics could be set based on a user's consent choice.

Consent Mode v2, introduced in 2023 and required since March 2024, adds two additional parameters: 'ad_user_data' (whether user data can be sent to Google for advertising purposes) and 'ad_personalization' (whether data can be used for personalized ads and remarketing).

Without these additional signals, Google cannot properly process your data for audience building or remarketing. Cookiebot CMP fully supports all four Consent Mode v2 parameters as a Google-certified CMP partner.

Google requires publishers serving ads to users in the EEA, UK, and Switzerland to adopt a certified CMP. For advertisers, Google strongly recommends working with a CMP from its CMP Partner Program to ensure consent signals are communicated correctly.

A certified CMP like Cookiebot is pre-configured to handle Google's Consent Mode v2, IAB TCF v2.2 integration, and the specific disclosure requirements that Google auditors check for, significantly reducing the risk of audit failure.

The simplest approach is to use a Google-certified CMP. With Cookiebot, you sign up for a free account, configure your cookie banner using pre-built templates, and install it on your site via a code snippet, Google Tag Manager, or a CMS plugin (WordPress, Wix, and others are supported).

Cookiebot automatically sends the correct Consent Mode v2 signals (including 'ad_storage', 'analytics_storage', 'ad_user_data', and 'ad_personalization') to Google based on your visitors' consent choices.

If your consent setup remains non-compliant, Google will likely restrict or revoke your access to ad personalization and remarketing features for EEA, UK, and Swiss traffic.

This means you would lose the ability to build custom audiences, deliver personalized ads, and run remarketing campaigns for users in those regions. Your ads would be limited to non-personalized serving, which typically results in significantly lower performance and reduced return on ad spend.

Yes, in all likelihood. Without a properly implemented Consent Mode v2 setup, Google tags will not capture accurate data about users from the EEA, UK, and Switzerland, which directly impacts your conversion tracking, reporting accuracy, and Smart Bidding optimization.

With Cookiebot CMP and Consent Mode v2 in place, Google can still use conversion modeling to estimate conversions from users who decline consent, helping you maintain measurement capabilities while respecting user privacy choices.

After you have implemented a compliant consent setup, you can notify Google's audit team that changes have been made and request a re-audit. Google does not publish a fixed timeline for re-review, but the process typically involves their team revisiting your website to verify the fix.

In the meantime, if you have implemented Cookiebot CMP with Consent Mode v2, the correct consent signals will begin flowing to Google services immediately. You can verify your implementation is working correctly using Google Tag Assistant and the Diagnostics tab in your Google Ads conversion actions.