Consent Mode v2: What You Actually Lose When a User Declines
·6 min read
When analytics_storage is denied, Google Tags don't simply stay silent —
they send a cookieless ping carrying only what's legally safe to carry,
and GA4's behavioral modeling tries to fill the gap statistically.
What survives a decline
- Aggregate event counts, heavily bucketed
- Modeled conversions, at the property level, once volume thresholds are met
- Nothing at the user or session level — there is no identity to attach to
The threshold trap
Modeling requires a minimum volume of both consented and unconsented traffic per market. Below that threshold, GA4 simply shows less data — it doesn't model a substitute. Low-traffic markets and small properties should expect visible gaps, not smoothed estimates.