Given the updates in GTM to align your tags with user consent status (whether they accept or reject cookies), below is the guide on how I have implemented cookie banner from Cookiebot and set up consent settings in GTM.

Why Cookiebot

I have previously tested different cookie banners but I ended up choosing Cookiebot because it already has a template for CMP (Consent Management Platform). By the time of writing this post, currently, there are 3 templates in GTM. You can access this menu by going to the “Shield” icon on Tags Screen. If you don’t see this icon, you can enable this function on the Admin tab, under Container Settings. Check the “Enable consent overview” box under Additional Settings and save your changes:

I chose Cookiebot because it looks simple enough to set up accounts and cookie banner on site. 

Setting up Cookiebot

Cookiebot has a great user guide on how to set up Cookiebot CMP here: https://support.cookiebot.com/hc/en-us/articles/360003793854-Google-Tag-Manager-deployment 

You can go through the guide and follow along to set up accordingly.

Additional Setup in GTM

Once you have enabled the integration, you can click on Consent Management button under GTM Tags Overview screen and review the Consent status of all tags in your GTM container.

For every tag, it should show Built-In Consent and Additional Consent. Based on your privacy settings, you can configure whether you need to add more Consent (for example, some Ad tags may already have ad_storage Built-In Consent but you want to add in additional analytics_storage Consent).

Preview the changes in GTM

Once everything is set up, you should preview the changes by using GTM Preview Mode. In Preview, you should be able to see that none of the tags is fired, except Cookiebot Configuration in Consent Initialization Stage. 

Then you can click on Accepting All Cookies or Some Cookies from Cookiebot banner and only by then, your tags should fire accordingly.

That’s pretty much it! Hope you have fun setting this up and comment below this post if you have any questions 🙂