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Why does GA4 show fewer visits since the banner went up?
GA4 only records a visit when its tag loads and can set its cookie, and with the banner that happens after the person accepts analytics. Whoever declines, or leaves before deciding, is not there. If you see a drop, first check the day you switched the banner on and whether the drop starts right there.
Basic or advanced consent mode. What each one measures
Google’s consent mode is how your banner tells Google’s tags what the person has allowed. It has four signals. analytics_storage for analytics cookies, ad_storage for advertising cookies, and two more for ads, ad_user_data and ad_personalization. You will often see the four referred to as consent mode v2. For GA4, the first one is what matters.
You can set it up two ways. In basic mode, the tags do not load until the person answers, and if they decline nothing is sent to Google, not even the consent status. In advanced mode, the tags load from the start with everything denied and, while there is no permission, send the consent state and cookieless measurements, which Google uses to model the gap.
Behavioural modelling has thresholds. At least 1,000 events a day with analytics denied for 7 days, and 1,000 daily users with consent on 7 of the previous 28 days. Many small-business sites never get there, and below those numbers there is no modelling.
Can I use GA4 without a cookie banner in Spain?
According to the AEPD guide, analytics cookies are not exempt from informed consent, and GA4 works with first-party cookies such as _ga. The AEPD’s audience-measurement guide describes when a tool could be exempt, but it names none. Check it with whoever handles your legal side before removing the banner.
What the law says. LSSI article 22.2 and the AEPD guide
In Spain, article 22.2 of Law 34/2002 (the LSSI) says storage and data-retrieval devices may be used on a visitor’s device on condition that they have given consent after receiving clear and complete information about their use and the purposes of the processing. The only exception is technical access to transmit a communication, or what is strictly necessary for a service the person has expressly requested.
The AEPD’s Guía sobre el uso de las cookies (updated May 2024) says analytics cookies are not exempt from informed consent, although they are unlikely to pose a privacy risk when they are first-party, aggregated, strictly statistical, disclosed and refusable. Reject must be offered at the same level and with the same visibility as accept, and inactivity is never consent.
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Let's talkHow to read GA4 from now on. Trends instead of totals
Treat the day you switched the banner on as day zero and compare later months with each other, not with the months before. Look at proportions. The weight of each channel, landing pages, how many arrivals end up on the form. If you run a seasonal business on the Costa Brava, compare each summer with the previous one only when both come after the banner. If GA4 drops and calls and form submissions hold steady, the problem is the measurement.
- Note the banner date and every change you make to it.
- Compare only periods after the banner.
- Look at proportions instead of total sessions.
- Put each month’s real enquiries next to GA4.
Have my visits really dropped, or does it just look that way?
Check three things. The day you switched the banner on and whether the drop starts right there. Your Search Console clicks, which do not depend on the banner. And the month’s real enquiries. If only GA4 drops, it is the measurement. If everything drops, you have a visibility or business problem.
How to measure with fewer cookies, or none
Some data never passes through the cookie banner, either because it stores nothing on the visitor’s device or because it comes from somewhere else. None of it replaces GA4 entirely, but together it tells you whether the business is going up or down.
The AEPD also has a guide on cookies for audience-measurement tools (Uso de cookies para herramientas de medición de audiencia, January 2024). It says measurement cookies could be exempt from consent if they only measure the site’s audience, on the publisher’s behalf alone, produce anonymous statistics, cross no other data, pass nothing to third parties and do not follow people across sites. It names no tool.
- Search Console. Clicks and impressions on Google, which come from the search engine, not from your site.
- Server statistics. They count requests without cookies, bots included.
- Plausible, or Matomo with cookies disabled. Less detail, and they cannot recognise someone who comes back the next day.
What to check in your own cookie banner
Open your site in a private window and watch the browser’s network tab. In basic mode there should be no request to Google Analytics before the visitor decides. In GA4 Admin, under the consent settings, you can check whether the consent signals are arriving.
- Reject on the same layer as accept, at the same level and with the same visibility.
- A button to change the decision at any time, and the _ga cookies deleted on rejection.
- A cookie policy that names the tool you use and the cookies it sets.
- Consent that is not assumed for more than 24 months, the AEPD’s good-practice limit.
Is it true GA4 will soon not need a banner?
Brussels is negotiating a reform, the so-called digital omnibus, that could change which measurement cookies need permission. The Commission proposed it in November 2025 and the European Parliament and the Council are still working on it. It is not law, it has no adoption date and nobody knows what the final text will say. Until then, what applies is the LSSI and the AEPD guide.
How we do it at crida studio
At crida.studio we run our own banner with two categories, analytics and marketing. GA4 only loads if the person accepts analytics, and until then no Google tag loads and no analytics cookie is set. If someone withdraws permission, measurement stops and the _ga cookies are deleted. Since 31 October 2026 the Resources section carries the same banner, and one decision covers the whole site.
