How to activate the IAB TCF with My Agile Privacy® (AdSense, Ad Manager, AdMob)

The IAB TCF (Transparency and Consent Framework by the Interactive Advertising Bureau) is the shared standard that governs how publishers, advertisers and advertising platforms collect and communicate users’ consent to the processing of data for advertising purposes. In practice it turns your visitors’ choices into a technical signal that advertising partners can read and respect, streamlining GDPR compliance.

It matters above all to anyone who monetizes with advertising: if you use Google AdSense, Ad Manager, AdMob or similar platforms, these networks require a Framework-compliant consent signal to keep serving ads in the EU. My Agile Privacy® is an integrated, certified CMP (Consent Management Platform) — registered with IAB Europe and holding the Certified Google CMP Partner badge — so you manage everything from the plugin, with no external tools. This guide shows you how to turn it on and set it up.

Activating the IAB TCF

The option is turned off by default: you have to enable it manually. Here is the exact path in My Agile Privacy®:

• From the WordPress dashboard go to My Agile Privacy → Privacy Settings (the plugin options).
• Open the Consent tab.
• Scroll to the "Activate IAB Transparency and Consent Framework" box.
• Tick "Activate IAB TCF".
• Click "Update Settings".

The feature is available depending on your active plan.

Advertiser Consent Mode

Right below the activation checkbox, inside the IAB box, the "Advertiser Consent Mode" sub-option appears (the "Enable" checkbox). You only see it if you also have Google Consent Mode v2 active (in its own box within the same Consent tab): if Consent Mode v2 is off, this option stays hidden.

It is on by default and it is the recommended setting: leave it as is. It tells advertising vendors (including Google) that your site uses Google Consent Mode v2 alongside the IAB TCF, so that Google’s tags correctly combine the two signals.

Don’t confuse it with the Google Additional Consent (AC string): that is a different mechanism, handled always and automatically by the plugin, which collects consent for the Google partners that are not yet part of IAB’s Global Vendor List (you find them in the "Google Ad Technology Provider" section of the panel, further down). Advertiser Consent Mode, instead, is just the signal that declares the coexistence of Consent Mode v2 and the TCF: they are two distinct things, and neither requires extra configuration on your part.

What changes in the banner

With the IAB TCF active, your cookie banner keeps the layout you set: it doesn’t change shape or position. What changes is the content. The banner’s first layer shows extended text that states the number of advertising partners involved and includes the links to open the advertising preferences panel and to view the list of partners.

The partner count is dynamic: the full list, always current, can be consulted straight from the banner.

The three buttons are the usual ones and apply to the TCF purposes and vendors as well:

• Accept — consents to all purposes and all partners.
• Reject — denies everything: a valid consent signal is still generated, communicating the refusal to the partners (it is not an absence of response).
• Customize — opens the panel where the user picks purposes and individual partners.

The advertising preferences panel and the vendors

When the user opens the panel (from the banner links or the Customize button), they find two tabs:

• "Cookies and third-party software" — the classic cookies and services managed by the plugin.
• "Advertising preferences" — the tab dedicated to the IAB TCF.

In the Advertising preferences tab an introduction explains that preferences are collected through the TCF consent string and that the user’s choices are saved in the MAP_GMTString cookie for a maximum of 6 months. At the top you find the "Accept all - Reject all" links for a quick choice.

Next comes the "Preference Management" section, with the categories defined by the Framework:

• Purposes — each with its own toggle, which can be switched on or off.
• Special Purposes — informational only: they rely on legitimate interest, so they are shown transparently but without a toggle.
• Features and Special Features — with their respective options.

Further down, the "Preferences for TCF Individual Advertising Service" section with the "Modify Preferences" link opens the list of individual vendors. Each partner has a toggle and an expandable card showing:

• the declared purposes and their durations;
• "Storage and device access";
• the categories of data processed;
• the "Privacy Policy" and "Data Disclosure" links. The latter opens the vendor’s official list of declared cookies and storage (identifier, type, duration, domain, purpose).

A separate section, "Preferences for Individual Google Ad Technology Provider", gathers the Google partners handled through Google Additional Consent (see above), outside IAB’s Global Vendor List.

Consents already collected and reset

An important point: activating or deactivating the IAB TCF does not reset consents already collected. Anyone who has already given consent won’t see the banner (or the TCF layer) again until their consent expires or until they reopen the preferences panel themselves. So, after activation, the new advertising flow starts immediately only for new visitors.

If you want to ask everyone for consent right away, use the "Reset given consent" box at the bottom of the same Consent tab:

• Tick "Do reset given consent".
• Click "Update Settings".

Warning: as the interface itself points out, this action resets ALL consents collected so far, not just the advertising ones. Every visitor will be treated as new and will see the banner again.

Configuring AdSense / Ad Manager on Google’s side

Turning the IAB TCF on in the plugin is half the job: you also have to tell Google to use your certified CMP. The steps take place in the console of the Google product you use (AdSense, Ad Manager or AdMob) and, in short, are:

• Open the "Privacy & messaging" section of your Google account.
• Create or activate the consent message for the EU/EEA and UK, choosing to handle it through an IAB-certified CMP (My Agile Privacy®) instead of Google’s native message.
• Select the vendor list (the list of advertising partners) consistent with the one managed by the CMP.
• Check the EU ads settings, so that ads are served only after valid consent.

From this point on Google will read the consent signal produced by the plugin: ads appear only after the user has consented from the banner.

For the manual insertion of the AdSense code as a cookie inside the plugin (Cookie List, Raw code), refer to the dedicated AdSense guide, linked below.

Learn more

Learn more: IAB TCF 2.2: web compliance for Google AdSense advertisers, AdMob and Ad Manager via My Agile Privacy

Learn more: IAB TCF 2.3: what publishers need to know

Learn more: IAB TCF 2.4: the October 2026 deadline and how to prepare

Learn more: How to install Google AdSense in compliance with GDPR