Using Microsoft UET Consent Mode with Consent Studio

Last updated 1 day ago

Enable or disable Microsoft UET Consent Mode

Decide whether or not you want Consent Studio to send consent signals to Microsoft Advertising.

What Microsoft UET Consent Mode does

Microsoft Advertising requires a consent signal from every website that runs the Universal Event Tracking (UET) tag. When UET Consent Mode is enabled, Consent Studio tells the UET tag whether your visitor accepted or refused Marketing tracking technologies, and Microsoft adjusts what it stores accordingly.

"For visitors in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, Microsoft enforces this. If your UET tag never receives a consent signal, Microsoft stops counting your conversions and stops filling your remarketing lists."

Consent Studio sends the signal in two moments: once when the page loads, reflecting the choice the visitor made earlier, and again the moment the visitor changes their choice in the banner.

How to enable or disable Microsoft UET Consent Mode with Consent Studio

If you are just getting started with Consent Studio, Microsoft UET Consent Mode is enabled by default and you do not need to do anything else.

Toggling Microsoft UET Consent Mode from the Consent Studio Dashboard

Log in to your Consent Studio account and switch to the appropriate site to manage. In the dashboard, use the Web CMP dropdown menu to navigate to Behaviour.

In the left hand sidebar of the banner canvas, open the Consent Modes section.

Here, you will be able to toggle the Enable UET Consent Mode setting.

What the signal is tied to

Microsoft models advertising consent only. Consent Studio links it to the Marketing category of your banner: accept Marketing and the signal is granted, refuse it and the signal is denied. The other categories in your banner have no Microsoft equivalent, so they are not sent.

Important: the UET tag itself is not blocked by this setting. It keeps loading, and it keeps working, but it respects the consent signal it receives. This is what Microsoft calls Advanced Consent Mode, and it is the setup they recommend.

Check that it is working

There are two ways to confirm that the UET tag on your website is receiving the signal.

1. With Microsoft's UET Tag Helper

Install the UET Tag Helper browser extension for Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome, open your website and look at the asc value on the events it lists. It reads D while consent is denied and G once the visitor accepts.

With your browser's developer tools

Open your website, open the developer tools console and enter:

window.uetq.uetConfig.consent.enabled

A result of true means the UET tag is running in Consent Mode and is receiving the signals Consent Studio sends.

Troubleshooting

Consent Studio reports that UET Consent Mode is not registering. This means we found a UET tag on your site that never picked up our signals. In almost every case one of the following applies:

  • The Consent Studio script is placed after the UET tag. Move the Consent Studio script as high in the <head> of your pages as possible, above the UET tag, so the consent signal is set before Microsoft's tag starts working.

  • Another consent solution is also sending signals to Microsoft. Only one may do this. Remove the other implementation, or turn off Enable UET Consent Mode in Consent Studio.

  • The website is using the IAB Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF). Microsoft accepts either Consent Mode or TCF, never both at the same time.

“My Microsoft conversions dropped after enabling this.”

That is expected to a degree, and it is the point: conversions from visitors who refused Marketing are no longer attributed to individual people. Microsoft models part of that volume back for you in their reporting.

I also use Microsoft Clarity.

Clarity has its own consent setting and is not covered by UET Consent Mode. You can manage it separately through the Microsoft Clarity integration in Consent Studio CMP.