Enhanced Google Consent Signal Mapping

What Is Enhanced Google Consent Signal Mapping?

Enhanced Google Consent Signal Mapping is an optional parent-level block, off by default, that maps each of Google's four consent signals — ad_storage, ad_user_data, ad_personalization and analytics_storage — to its own source.

Without it, all four signals inherit a single value from the consent purpose assigned to the sync. In practice each signal often corresponds to a different consent purpose, and those purposes vary independently. A single inherited value means either overstating consent or dropping the event.

When the toggle is enabled, four selectors appear. Each can be set to a consent category from your live configuration, or to one of three fixed values:

• Always granted — the signal is sent as granted regardless of user state.
• Always denied — the signal is sent explicitly as denied. The call still fires, carrying a denied signal.
• Not set — the signal is omitted from the consent call entirely. The call still fires; Google applies its own default for that signal.

Why It Sits at Parent Level

gtag.js maintains one global consent state per page. Mapping consent signals per child sync would mean multiple children writing conflicting values to the same object, resolved by load order. Consent mapping therefore applies to the Google tag instance as a whole.

How It Behaves

• Neither Always denied nor Not set suppresses the call. Both still fire; they differ only in whether the signal is present and denied, or absent and left to Google's default. Suppression is governed by the per-sync consent gate, not by these selectors.
• The per-sync Consent Type gate is unchanged. If the required consent category is not granted, no calls are made to Google at all. This block shapes the consent signals on calls that do fire; it does not replace the gate that decides whether they fire.
• A mapping can be unreachable. If a sync's gate requires a category that is denied, no call is made and the signal mapping never applies, regardless of how the selectors are set.
• This is unrelated to Enhanced Conversions, despite the similar name. Enhanced Conversions is a Google product for matching hashed customer data; this block only shapes Consent Mode signals.