I have a problem: I don't remember things :) That's why my Google Calendar is full of memos even for personal stuff I'm supposed to remember.
Given this premise, you can probably imagine how much I hate the new gcd parameter, the parameter associated with Consent Mode v2 - populated with consent for the new signals ad_user_data and ad_personalization.
The gcd parameter in GA4 network requests
For those who don't know what I'm talking about, I strongly recommend having a look at this guide on the Simo Ahava's blog authored by Markus Baersch, to get a deeper understanding of Consent Mode v2 and the gcd parameter.
- first two integers, e.g. 11
- followed by a letter to represent the status of the ad_storage consent signal, for instance p
- followed by another integer separating the above consent signal from the next one, e.g. 1
- a letter to represent the status of the analytics_storage consent signal, e.g. another p
- integer, e.g. 1
- letter - e.g. p - for the ad_user_data consent signal
- integer, 1
- letter - p - for the ad_personalization consent signal
- finally, another integer to close the string, for instance 5.
Taking the above example, the value passed in the gcd parameter would be 11p1p1p1p5.
I don't know what people think about this parameter but I find it a bit confusing and the meaning of the letters representing consent signals is hard to remember since they are not limited to the p I 've used in my example: There are 9 of them!
How beautiful is the gcs parameter instead
- G1 is always there, thus can be ignored
- then there's the ad_storage consent signal, either 1 if it's been granted or 0 if not
- finally there's the analytics_storage consent signal, again 1 or 0 wheter consent has been given or not.
The trick I found to remember how to read the gcd parameter
Serendipity, as usual, has shown me the way again this time. I was playing with a table taken from the guide I mentioned on Simo's blog, when sorting the rows on Google Sheets I realized there was a pattern.
The table taken from Simo's blog (credits) |
A simple alphabetical sorting in the Letter column unveils there are 3 letter groups:
- the 1st letter group (l, m, n) represents consent signals where the default command is not recorded altogether
- the 2nd one (p, q, r) represents consent signals where the default command sets to denied
- the 3rd one (t, u, v) represents consent signals where the default command sets to granted.
- letters in the 1st position (l, p, t) represent consent signals where the update command is missing
- letters in the 2nd position (m, q, u) represent consent signals where the update command sets to denied
- letters in the 3rd position (n, r, v) represent consent signals where the update command sets to granted.
I know this can still be a bit confusing so the table below is worth a thousand words.
The table that helped me understand how to read the gcd parameter |
Conclusions
I guess there are other people who already found that pattern and are using it to read the gcd parameter. Some other people are instead ignoring this topic altogether.
However, I hope there's someone else who will find this tip useful for the day by day debugging.
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