Recently, I built a tracking system from scratch using GA4 and Google Tag Manager on my personal website.
I strengthened my analytical skills by implementing event tracking, configuring funnels, and interpreting user behaviour data in detail.
I tracked form interactions, CTA clicks, scroll depth, and social media link clicks. I could see exactly where users dropped off and what they did before leaving. I built funnel explorations, device-level segments, and a Looker Studio dashboard to present everything clearly.
From a purely technical standpoint, it worked.
But at some point I stepped back and tried to answer a simple question: what had I actually told people I was collecting? The cookie banner existed. I had set it up. Yet I had designed the entire tracking system without once thinking about what the experience looked like from the user's perspective.
That realisation did not go away.
The part nobody talks about in analytics courses
Every tutorial I followed taught me how to implement tracking. None of them asked whether I should.
That says something about how the industry thinks about data. We treat analytics as a purely technical skill and we treat cookie consent as a legal formality. You add the banner, you tick the compliance box, and then you move on to the interesting part: the data.
Every session in your GA4 dashboard represents a real person who chose to visit your page. They came with a purpose. They gave you their time and, depending on your setup, a detailed record of everything they did while they were there.
That is not nothing.
When I looked at my own tracking setup more critically, I made a decision to remove scroll depth from my funnel. Technically, it gave me engagement data. But on a short landing page, scroll behaviour does not tell you anything meaningful about intent.
I was collecting it because I could, not because it served a genuine purpose. Removing it felt like a small act of honesty toward the people visiting my site.
The expert feedback I received later confirmed something I had only half-noticed: I had been running GA4 and Meta Pixel without a proper cookie consent banner. Not because I was trying to avoid the requirement, but because nobody in any course or tutorial had brought it up as part of the implementation process.
That is exactly the gap I am talking about.
I wish that kind of reflection were a normal part of how marketers learn analytics.
What I think needs to change
Cookie consent has become a design problem. Banners are often structured in ways that make accepting easier than rejecting. Categories arrive pre-selected. The experience frequently pushes users toward yes rather than offering a meaningful choice.
Under GDPR, consent must be freely given, specific, informed, and clearly expressed. Many implementations simply do not meet that standard, whether by intention or by habit. Either way, the result is the same.
That is not transparency. It is the appearance of transparency.
Marketers need to start owning this part of their work. If you set up the GTM container and configured the GA4 property, you are also the person responsible for what that system does once a user lands on the page. Placing the full burden of data decisions on individual users does not work when those users lack the context to make genuinely informed choices.
Google itself acknowledges this through its Consent Mode framework, which adjusts how GA4 behaves based on a user's consent status (Google, 2023).
Data literacy and ethical responsibility are not separate skills. They belong together. Analytics education needs to start treating them that way.
Why this matters beyond the legal requirement
Trust is slow to build and fast to lose.
Audiences are becoming more aware of how their data is used, and more cautious about brands that feel unclear or one-sided. A cookie banner that is deliberately confusing does not just risk a fine. It signals to users that the brand values their data more than their experience.
The marketers who will stand out in the next few years are not the ones who collected the most data. They are the ones who used data thoughtfully and built relationships their audiences actually chose to be part of.
That requires asking harder questions at the implementation stage, not just the strategy stage.
Every click you track is a question: do you deserve this information, and are you willing to be honest about what you are doing with it?
We should start asking it more often.
References
GDPR.eu. General Data Protection Regulation. https://gdpr-info.eu
Google. Google Analytics Consent Mode documentation. https://developers.google.com/tag-platform/security/guides/consent
Solove, D. J. (2013). Privacy self-management and the consent dilemma. Harvard Law Review, 126(7), 1880–1903.
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