Cookie Consent
Ask visitors before anything tracks them, add a cookie banner with AI, choose what waits for which consent, and keep a log of every choice as proof.
The Cookie Consent tab is where your site asks visitors before tracking them — and keeps a record of what each one chose. If your visitors are in the EU or UK, this is required: tracking cookies need the visitor's consent first.
Changes reach the published site the next time you publish.
Ask before tracking
Turn on Ask before tracking. From then on:
- Google tags (Tag Manager, GA4) run in Consent Mode v2 with everything denied until the visitor accepts — no cookies, only anonymous pings.
- Meta, TikTok and LinkedIn don't load at all before marketing consent.
- Affiliate referrals from order-form links are recorded only after marketing consent.
- Funnel visits are recorded only after analytics consent.
- Code Injection waits for the category you give it (see below).
- Every choice is kept in the consent log.
Caution
While the switch is off, your Pixels & Tracking tags and funnel analytics run for every visitor without asking — and a banner that stores its own choice isn't seen by any of them.
Hold Google tags until consent is a stricter option. Off, GTM and GA4 load at once in Consent Mode. On, they don't load at all until the visitor allows Analytics (GA4) or Analytics or Marketing (GTM) — stricter, but Google's own reports recover less.
The cookie banner
The switch decides what waits; the site still needs a banner that asks. If your site has none, press Add with AI — the builder opens with the request ready to send, and the AI builds a banner in your site's style that always matches the switch:
- Accept all, Reject non-essential and Manage preferences, side by side.
- Preferences with Strictly necessary always on and one switch per category, all off by default.
- A Cookie settings link in the footer and a small cookie button in the corner, so visitors can change their mind or withdraw consent later.
- The visitor's consent ID with a copy button — the ID they quote to you to ask what was recorded about their choice.
Once your site has a banner, the card shows Added and the file it lives in. To change it, ask the AI in the builder.
Ask the AI for the banner rather than adding your own: a banner that stores the choice in its own cookie gates nothing — the tags and the log never see it — so the builder won't write one, and cookie-consent tools from third parties aren't needed.
What waits for which consent
| Category | What waits for it |
|---|---|
| Strictly necessary | Nothing — always on |
| Functional | Embedded YouTube, Vimeo, Google Maps, Calendly, Typeform, Spotify, SoundCloud, Loom and Wistia; code you file under Functional |
| Analytics | GA4 and GTM (fully, with Hold Google tags), funnel analytics, code you file under Analytics |
| Marketing | Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, affiliate referrals, Facebook / Instagram / X / TikTok post embeds, code you file under Marketing |
The Functional switch appears on the banner only when your site needs it — when it embeds videos, maps or booking widgets, or you file code under Functional. Until the visitor allows it, each embed shows an Allow and load box that allows just that category.
Note
A banner built before October 2026 doesn't have a Functional switch. Ask the AI to update it — until then, only Accept all loads Functional content.
Code Injection: when to load
In Code Injection, When to load this code files your own snippets under a category:
- Always — code that neither tracks nor remembers visitors: site verification, fonts.
- After Functional consent — chat widgets, embedded players, maps.
- After Analytics consent — Hotjar, Microsoft Clarity, other analytics or heatmaps.
- After Marketing consent — ad pixels and retargeting tags not set up in Pixels & Tracking.
Filing code under a category changes what your site asks for, so its visitors are asked again.
Cookie policy
Pick the Page your banner links to — your cookie policy, or your privacy policy if cookies are
explained there — or Other link… for a policy hosted elsewhere. Give it a Version (for
example 2026-09-30) and change the version whenever the policy's text changes: every recorded
choice notes which version the visitor saw.
Consent log
The Consent log keeps every choice made in the banner for five years, as proof that consent was given. It stores no IP address or browser details — each visitor is a random consent ID.
- Accepted all, Rejected all, Chose some and Withdrew — the last 30 days and all time.
- Find a visitor by consent ID shows that visitor's history and whether every record is exactly as it was written.
- Each row shows the date, consent ID, decision, what was allowed, the page, and — on hover — the policy version and whether the choice came from the banner or Cookie settings.
- Export CSV downloads the log, or one visitor's history when you've looked them up.
When a visitor asks what you recorded about them, ask for the consent ID shown in their Cookie settings and look it up here.
Good to know
- Recording starts once the site is published with the switch on.
- Closing the banner without choosing records nothing, and everything stays off.
- The tab isn't shown for mobile-app projects.
- It's under the same permission as Pixels & Tracking.