The UK and EU were instrumental in creating policies and legislation to protect users from excessive exploitation from advertisers. Website owners and digital advertising platforms have needed to adapt to comply with these policies.
Large organisations such as Google and Facebook are now required to enforce aspects of the EPF (ePrivacy Directive) and GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) that require advertisers to obtain and respect end-users’ consent.
Google will start enforcing this on Google Ads in January and February 2024 for large accounts, aiming for full compliance by March 2024.
How to obtain and respect end-users consent
One option is to get your developers to produce code and a database for this. But rather than re-inventing the wheel, a more practical solution is to implement one of the many Consent Management Platforms (CMPs) that have been produced recently.
If you use Google Ads we strongly recommend you use one of the CMP providers who are also CMP partners. These include companies such as:
- CookieYes – we have deployed this on small websites as their free and low-cost solutions work well
- CookieBot – a robust easy to use solution, now combined as a business with
- Usercentrics – a professional-level solution that enables scaling – great for a larger business
See our article on different CMP providers for a more in-depth review.
Most CMPs integrate easily into common website platforms such as Shopify or WordPress and link with CRMs such as SalesForce and HubSpot they make it easy to manage the consent banner content and pass the information on consent back to Google for conversion measurement and audience targeting.
Summary
Any business marketing in Europe or the UK should ensure they have a CMP (Consent Management Platform) installed on their website.
Businesses elsewhere in the world using Google Ads should also ensure they have Consent Management sorted.
