Providing user consent signals on your Microsoft campaigns by May 5, 2025

As digital footprints grow, safeguarding personal information has become crucial not just for regulatory compliance but most importantly for establishing trust with consumers. Microsoft Advertising has taken a significant step in this direction by enforcing the explicit provision of user consent signals by May 5, 2025. This initiative highlights our unwavering commitment to putting user privacy at the forefront of our priorities, as we build a web that works for everyone.

Why it matters

Providing user consent signals helps you comply with local privacy regulations and build user trust while gathering valuable insights to optimize your advertising performance:

1. Privacy regulations: By enforcing Consent Mode, we help your business comply with privacy laws such as GDPR, avoiding potential fines and penalties.
2. User trust: Respecting user privacy preferences builds trust with users who are increasingly concerned about how their data is collected and used.
3. Advertising performance: Even with consent restrictions, you can continue to gather valuable insights to optimize your campaigns, ensuring effective targeting and conversion tracking.

What is Consent Mode?

Consent Mode is a feature introduced by Microsoft Advertising that enables you to gather insights while respecting user privacy preferences and adhering to privacy regulations. It is applicable to any client using Universal Event Tracking (UET) on the Microsoft Advertising Platform, as well as the Universal Pixel, Segment, and Conversion pixels within Microsoft Invest, Curate or Monetize. This feature enables the adjustment of cookie access based on the consent status of users visiting your websites from the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland. Consequently, this means that you can continue tracking conversions and optimizing advertising campaigns without compromising user privacy.

Consent Mode works by adjusting the tracking behavior on Microsoft's tag code based on a parameter called ad_storage. This parameter controls whether ads can store cookies on a user's device. The setting can be either "granted" (allowing cookies for advertising) or "denied" (blocking cookies). Setting this parameter enables you to share user consent signals with Microsoft.

Consent signals can also be shared with Microsoft via the IAB’s Transparency and Consent Framework, directly or through a Consent Management Platform (CMP).

How to send consent signals to Microsoft

There are three ways to provide user consent signals (only one of them should be implemented):

1. Implement Consent Mode on UET (if you are using the Microsoft Advertising Platform), Universal Pixel, Segment or Conversion pixel (if you are using Microsoft Invest, Curate or Monetize)
   
   
2. Alternatively, you can send us user consent signals using the IAB’s Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF), by passing those signals directly in a TCF 2.0 string, or via your CMP of choice.
   
   
3. Finally, if you are using third-party data management tools like Google Tag Manager, integrating Microsoft’s Consent Mode is also straightforward.

Ready to get started?

Ensure you provide consent signals on your Microsoft Advertising campaigns as of today, to continue to optimize your advertising efforts while ensuring user preferences are respected. Failing to do so by May 5 will impact your advertising performance for site visits originating from the EEA, UK, and Switzerland. As privacy concerns continue to grow, features like Consent Mode will play an essential role in the future of digital advertising.