ConsentMark
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G
AdvertisingHigh complexity

Google Ad Manager (GAM / AdSense)

by Google

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Sets cookies
Yes
Sends PII
No
Cross-site tracking
Yes
Consent required
Advertising / Marketing
Transfer mechanism
EU-US Data Privacy Framework
Cookies
__gads__gpiDSIDIDEid

Overview

Google's publisher-side ad serving platform covering both Google Ad Manager (sell-side ad server for publishers) and AdSense (turnkey contextual and audience advertising for smaller publishers). Delivers ads via the Google Publisher Tag (GPT) library served from securepubads.g.doubleclick.net and the AdSense adsbygoogle library served from pagead2.googlesyndication.com. Sets the __gads and __gpi first-party cookies on the publisher domain plus standard DoubleClick third-party cookies for cross-site frequency capping and measurement.

Detection capabilities

Signature count
3
Detection methods
network
Property types
hostnamepathname

Consent Mode v2

Consent Mode v2

Google Consent Mode v2 signal requirements for this tag.

analytics_storagenot used
ad_storagerequired
ad_user_datarequired
ad_personalizationrequired

Performance impact

Performance Impact

Requests per page
3

Common mistakes

  • 1Deploying the GPT library (securepubads.g.doubleclick.net/tag/js/gpt.js) before advertising consent has been obtained, because it is perceived as a publisher infrastructure script rather than an advertising tag
  • 2Not including __gads and __gpi in the cookie declaration because they appear as first-party cookies on the publisher domain and are easily missed during cookie audits
  • 3Assuming that AdSense auto-ads can be deployed without explicit advertising consent because the tag is marketed as publisher monetisation
  • 4Not integrating Google Ad Manager with Consent Mode v2, causing personalised ad delivery when consent has been denied
  • 5Failing to block the GPT ad request URL (/gampad/ads) when consent is missing, which still transmits page context and user identifiers to Google ad servers

Compliance considerations

Google Ad Manager and AdSense set first-party cookies on the publisher domain (__gads, __gpi) and third-party cookies on doubleclick.net (id, IDE, DSID) for ad serving, frequency capping and personalisation. Both products constitute personal data processing requiring explicit advertising consent under GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive. Publishers must integrate Google Consent Mode v2 so that the GPT library can adapt its behaviour when consent is denied, and must not request ads via /gampad/ads until ad_storage consent has been granted. International transfers are covered by the EU-US Data Privacy Framework - verify the relevant Google entity's certification status. For AdSense, publishers acting as controllers are additionally subject to Google's Ads Data Processing Terms and must disclose GAM/AdSense in their privacy notice and cookie declaration.

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