Consent Signals

Overview

The process outlined in this guide will allow your site to make use of our Consent Signal Framework. We highly recommend following this process.

Our Consent Signal Framework contains a key property for the AWIN.Tracking object: AdvertiserConsent.

When set, the MasterTag will read its value and, based on this value, decide whether or not to set a Cookie (on the Landing page) and, furthermore, to read the value of the cookies on your order confirmation page.

Note

This article covers the integration of Awin Consent Signals exclusively in GTM. For information on consent handling in general, please see Consent Framework.

GTM - Client-Side Tracking

Important

To make use of the Awin Consent Tag, please ensure that you’ve installed the proper Awin Conversion Tag as outlined in our Google Tag Manager client-side tracking installation guidance.

Step 1 - The Awin Consent Signal template tag

The Awin Consent Signals tag can be imported directly from the GTM Community Template Gallery.

1. In Google Tag Manager, navigate to Tags.

2. Click New and choose Discover more tag types in the Community Template Gallery.
    

3. Searching for Awin will reveal the Awin Consent Signals tag.
    

4. Add this tag to your workspace, accepting any applicable notices.
    

5. The plugin is now available for use in your container. Add this tag to your container as you would with another tag and give it an identifiable name (e.g., Awin Consent Signals).
    

Step 2 - Tag configuration

There are two types of consent configurations supported by our tag. Please see the relevant section based on your current consent model.

If you do not have consent model in place, please proceed with the Google Consent Mode process.

Triggering logic

For a correct implementation of our Consent Signals plugin, your Consent Management Platform (CMP) tag should fire before the Consent Signals tag.

We want both of these tags to fire before any other Awin tag.

In summary, your triggering logic should be:

For more information on which triggers take precedence over another in GTM, please review Google’s guidance on this topic.

To ensure the correct firing sequence, we advise using the following trigger type, in the specified order:

1. Consent Initialization - For your CMP tag.

2. Initialization - For the Awin Consent tag.

3. Page View - For the Awin MasterTag / Conversion Tag.

Creating an initialization trigger

If you’re attempting to place an initialization trigger on the Awin Consent Tag and find that one is not available, please follow these steps:

1. In your tag, click on Triggering, then choose the plus sign (+) in the top right corner.

2. Select Initialization from the list.
    

3. Assign this trigger a recognizable name and apply it to your Awin Consent Signals tag.

Note

In this example, the Advertiser is using Cookiebot CMP, loaded via GTM.

Below is an example of how the tags and their triggers would look like in GTM.

Remove Consent Mode restriction from Awin tags

After the Consent Signals implementation is complete, the Awin tags are capable of handling consent automatically, therefore you must ensure that no further Consent Mode restrictions apply to the Awin tags, otherwise your implementation may yield incorrect results.  

To remove Consent Mode restrictions, open the Awin tags configurations, expand Advanced Settings section, then the Consent Settings section, and ensure that No additional consent required is selected, as seen below.

Please note that this apply to all three Awin web tags, i.e. Awin MasterTag, Awin Conversion, and Awin Consent Signals.

GTM - Server-Side Tracking

Introduction

If your area of ​​activity is subject to cookie consent regulations, please follow the instructions below to ensure that your sGTM tracking implementation complies with the relevant guidelines (e.g., the GDPR in the European Union).

Using Google Consent Mode

If you are using Google Consent Mode, you can configure the tag to make use of the Consent Mode parameters, this will enable an automatic mapping between the Consent Mode parameters state and the consent state within the Stape tag. Please see below the steps necessary to enable this.

Create “Consent Update" GA4 Event on Web Container

First, you need to inform the server container when the user updates their consent preference, this can be achieved by creating a GA4 custom event on your web container, this event sends a request to the server container when the consent state is updated.

To do this, navigate to the web container and create a GA4 event tag, in the Event Name field add “consent_update_sgtm”, and set the tag to trigger when cookie consent is updated, as shown below.

Map the “Consent Update” Event to the Awin Stape Tag

First, you need to create a new trigger to read the “Consent Update” created by the GA4 tag. To do this, go to the “Triggers” section in the server container, and create a new event as shown below.

Next, you need to map this event to the Stape tag, to do this, navigate to the “Tags” section, open the Awin Stape tag configuration, scroll down to the “Triggering” section and add the “Consent Update” event that you just created, as shown below.

Create Lookup Table Variable on Server Container

The next step is to create a Lookup table variable on the server container, this variable will enable the Stape tag to trigger whenever a page view event or a consent update event occurs. Configure the variable as shown below.

Note: ensure that the both the page_view and consent_update_sgtm event names are input in the Lookup Table.

Map the Lookup Table Variable to the Awin Stape Tag

The next step is to map the variable to the Awin Stape tag. Open the Awin Stape tag and expand the “Event Names” section, then map the variable created at the previous step.

Note, the ”Purchase event name” should remain the same.

Enable Consent Mode in the Awin Stape Tag

The last step is to enable the functionality from the Awin Stape tag. Tick the “Automatically detect consent from Google Consent Mode or Stape's Data Tag” checkbox, and select the consent mode parameter corresponding to the category of the Awin cookie, we recommend using “analytics_storage”, but please ensure that this is the same parameter as the one used for the client-side integration.

If the privacy regulator in your area of activity recognizes cashback and rewards cookies as “strictly necessary”, then please ensure the “Enable Unconditional Cashback & Rewards Tracking” is also ticked. More details about cashback and rewards tracking can be found here: Cookie consent settings

Using Custom Consent State Variable

You can also inform the tag of the consent state by mapping a variable that stores this to the “Awin Consent Signal” field.

If you do this, you must ensure that the below conditions are fulfilled:

This variable must store the consent state as chosen by the user

Accepted values are: 0,1,true,false. If anything else is specified, then the tag will interpret that as “true”.

If the use is yet to specify their preference, then the field should be set to “false”.

Every time the user changes their consent preference, the variable must be updated accordingly, and the tag must be retriggered using a page_view event.

Important Note

If you have implemented any of the above 2 solutions, then the Awin Stape tag will handle read the consent state and behave accordingly.

For your implementation to work correctly, if Consent Mode is active on your web container, you must ensure that the Google Tag and GA4 Event tags that are used to send event and Transaction data to the server container are not restricted by Consent Mode.

To do this, go to the web container, open each tag in question, expand the “Advanced Settings” section, then the “Consent Settings” section, and select “No additional consent required”.

With a full consent implementation, this applies to 3 tags, that is, the Google Tag that sends the page view event to the server container, the GA4 event tag that sends the “consent updated” event, and the GA4 event that send the transaction data and the purchase event.