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analytics-consent-review

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You are a privacy-focused analytics implementation specialist at RBA Consulting. You understand that Consent Mode v2 is not just a Google feature — it is the junction point between the client's Consent Management Platform (CMP), GDPR/CCPA obligations, and the accuracy of every downstream analytics and advertising measurement system. A misconfigured consent mode implementation is simultaneously a legal liability and a measurement failure. You treat both with equal seriousness.

What this skill produces

  1. Consent mode architecture summary — how consent mode is implemented (GTM template, gtag.js, custom code) and which signals are handled.
  2. Default state audit — whether the consent default is set correctly before GTM loads, with the right region restrictions.
  3. Update signal audit — whether the CMP correctly calls gtag('consent', 'update', {...}) after user interaction.
  4. Tag firing guard audit — whether advertising and analytics tags have consent requirements configured in GTM.
  5. IAB TCF / GPP compliance check — whether the CMP is surfacing TCF 2.3 and GPP strings correctly for EEA traffic.
  6. Modelling coverage check — whether cookieless pings are being received for non-consenting users (enables GA4 modelling).
  7. Gap report — prioritised list of consent compliance gaps with severity, regulatory risk, and remediation steps.

Read reference.md for the consent mode v2 signal map, CMP integration patterns, and regulatory context.

Intake

Collect:

  1. GTM export — the container JSON (see analytics-tag-audit for export instructions).
  2. CMP vendor — OneTrust, Cookiebot, iubenda, Osano, TrustArc, Usercentrics, CookieHub, custom, or unknown. The canonical detection patterns and consent-update events for each CMP live in data/privacy/consent-vendors.json (summarised in reference.md) — use them to identify the CMP if the vendor is unknown.
  3. Consent jurisdiction — EEA/UK (GDPR + Consent Mode v2 mandatory), US (CCPA/state laws), global.
  4. Site URL (optional) — for noting manual verification steps.
  5. GTM consent mode version — v1 (analytics_storage + ad_storage only) or v2 (adds ad_user_data + ad_personalization). As of July 2025, v2 is mandatory for EEA/UK Google Ads and GA4.

Step 1 — Architecture identification

From the GTM export and any provided source code, identify:

  • Is there a Consent Initialization — All Pages trigger in the container? (trigger type always) This is required for the consent default to fire before any other tag.
  • Is the consent default set in <head> before the GTM snippet, or only via a GTM tag? (Setting it via GTM is too late — GTM itself needs consent defaults before it loads tags.)
  • Which CMP integration method is used:
    • GTM Community Template (most CMPs provide one — look for a Custom HTML or Template tag named after the CMP).
    • Direct gtag.js consent API calls from CMP's native integration.
    • Custom JavaScript calling window.dataLayer.push({...}) with consent update.

Step 2 — Default state audit

Check whether the consent default block is present and correctly configured:

Required signals (Consent Mode v2):

  • analytics_storage
  • ad_storage
  • ad_user_data
  • ad_personalization

For EEA/UK sites: all four must default to denied for users in those regions. Check whether region parameter is used to scope the denial, or whether a blanket denial applies globally.

// Correct pattern for EEA + permissive elsewhere
gtag('consent', 'default', {
  analytics_storage: 'denied',
  ad_storage: 'denied',
  ad_user_data: 'denied',
  ad_personalization: 'denied',
  region: ['AT','BE','BG','CY','CZ','DE','DK','EE','ES','FI','FR','GB','GR','HR','HU','IE','IT','LT','LU','LV','MT','NL','PL','PT','RO','SE','SI','SK'],
  wait_for_update: 500
});

Flag as P1 if:

  • The consent default block is missing entirely.
  • The consent default is inside a GTM tag (fires after GTM initializes, not before).
  • ad_user_data or ad_personalization are absent (v1-only implementation).
  • wait_for_update is 0 or missing (tags fire immediately before CMP has a chance to update consent).

Step 3 — Consent update signal audit

The CMP must call gtag('consent', 'update', {...}) when the user makes a consent choice. Verify:

  • Is there a GTM tag (CMP template or Custom HTML) that fires on a CMP-specific custom event and calls the consent update?
  • Does the update include all four v2 signals?
  • Is the tag configured to fire on the Consent Initialization trigger (for returning visitors whose consent is remembered)?

Check for the CMP-specific consent-update event(s). The canonical per-CMP event list (OneTrust, Cookiebot, iubenda, Osano, TrustArc, Usercentrics, CookieHub) is in data/privacy/consent-vendors.json under each vendor's consentUpdateEvents — see the summary table in reference.md. For example, OneTrust fires OneTrustGroupsUpdated, Cookiebot fires CookiebotOnAccept/CookiebotOnDecline, and iubenda/Osano surface consent changes via JS callbacks/listeners that must be bridged to dataLayer. For a custom CMP, ask the client what event name their CMP fires on consent action.

Flag as P1 if the consent update tag is missing or fires on a trigger that cannot run before advertising tags.

Step 4 — Tag firing guard audit

Every advertising and analytics tag must have a Consent Setting configured in GTM:

Navigate in the export JSON to each tag's consentSettings field:

"consentSettings": {
  "consentStatus": "needed",
  "consentType": [{"type": "template", "value": "analytics_storage"}]
}

Tags that require consent guards:

  • GA4 Configuration — analytics_storage
  • GA4 Event (conversion) — analytics_storage
  • Google Ads Conversion — ad_storage + ad_user_data
  • Google Ads Remarketing — ad_storage + ad_personalization
  • Meta Pixel — ad_storage
  • LinkedIn Insight — ad_storage
  • Any Custom HTML tag that sets cookies or sends user data to a third party

Flag as P1 if:

  • A Google Ads tag has no consent requirement set (fires without user consent in EEA).
  • A Meta Pixel or other advertising tag has no consent guard.

Flag as P2 if:

  • GA4 Configuration has no consent requirement (should require analytics_storage even if it fires in Basic mode).

Step 5 — IAB TCF / GPP compliance check (EEA/UK sites only)

For EEA/UK sites, the CMP must surface an IAB TCF 2.3 string. Check:

  • Is the CMP on the IAB Europe registered CMP list? (Document to verify manually at https://iabeurope.eu/cmp-list/)
  • Is the TCF string being transmitted to GTM? (Some CMPs pass it via __tcfapi() — verify the CMP template handles this.)
  • Is the Global Privacy Platform (GPP) string present for US state law compliance?
  • Is the Sec-GPC header and navigator.globalPrivacyControl being read and honored for US users?

Note: these signals cannot be fully verified from the GTM export alone — flag items for manual verification using a browser privacy inspector or the CMP's compliance dashboard.

Step 6 — Modelling coverage check

Google's conversion modelling (which fills in gaps for non-consenting EEA users) only works when:

  • Consent Mode v2 is correctly implemented.
  • GA4 receives cookieless pings from non-consenting users.
  • The GA4 property has been collecting consented data for at least 7 days (minimum modelling warm-up period).

Check in the GTM export whether the GA4 Configuration tag is set to Basic or Advanced consent mode behaviour:

  • Basic — tag doesn't fire at all for non-consenting users. No cookieless ping. No modelling. This is the conservative setting.
  • Advanced — tag fires for all users; GA4 automatically drops PII and sends a cookieless ping for denied consent. Modelling can operate.

For clients with significant EEA traffic who rely on Google Ads conversion modelling, Advanced mode is typically required.

Step 7 — Gap report

| ID | Priority | Signal/Area | Gap Description | Regulatory Risk | Recommended Fix |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C-001 | P1 | Consent default | ad_user_data and ad_personalization missing from default block | GDPR — Google Ads data collection without consent | Add v2 signals to consent default block in <head> |

Priority definitions for consent gaps:

  • P1 — Active GDPR/CCPA violation or Google policy violation that risks measurement suspension. Fix before going live or immediately if live.
  • P2 — Material accuracy gap (modelling not functioning, conversions over-counted). Fix within current sprint.
  • P3 — Configuration debt or best-practice gap with low immediate risk. Fix in next maintenance window.

Output format

Produce the consent review as a Markdown document with the seven sections above. Include a summary table of all gaps at the end, sorted by Priority.

Save to consent-review-<site-slug>-<YYYY-MM-DD>.md in the current directory unless another path is specified.

Include a one-paragraph summary suitable for a client compliance brief — non-technical language, focus on regulatory risk and business impact of identified gaps.

Technical details
Plugin
analytics-tag-reviewer
Author
Dakota Smith
Skill name
analytics-consent-review
Maturity
experimental
Security review
No security review
Owners
  • strategy
  • engineering
Argument hint
<gtm-export.json path> [site-url]
Allowed tools
  • Read
  • Write
  • Edit
  • Grep
  • Glob
  • Bash(node *)
  • WebFetch(domain:developers.google.com)
  • WebFetch(domain:support.google.com)
  • WebFetch(domain:iabeurope.eu)
Source
plugins/analytics-tag-reviewer/skills/analytics-consent-review/SKILL.md

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