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What "reject all" should do to your tags (and what often happens instead)

After "reject all", no advertising pixel should set cookies or send events, and Google tags should send at most cookieless pings with consent denied. The usual failures are pixels hard-coded outside the consent tool, tags that fire before the banner loads, and a reject button that does not actually change anything.

Published 2026-10-27

What should happen

In the EU and the UK, storing or reading non-essential cookies needs the visitor's consent, and refusing should be as easy as accepting. European data protection authorities agreed in the EDPB cookie banner taskforce report that a banner without a way to refuse generally does not give valid consent, that pre-ticked boxes are not consent, and that cookie placement cannot rest on "legitimate interest". This is not legal advice; check with your own counsel for your markets.

In tracking terms, after a visitor clicks reject all:

  • Meta, TikTok, Pinterest, Snapchat, LinkedIn, X, Reddit and other advertising pixels send nothing and set no cookies.
  • Google tags either do not load (basic Consent Mode) or send cookieless pings with consent denied (advanced Consent Mode).
  • The choice holds on every following page, including checkout.

What often happens instead

  • A pixel installed outside the consent tool. A theme setting, a shop app or a hard-coded snippet loads the pixel directly, so the banner cannot stop it.
  • Tags that fire before the banner. The tag manager loads, fires the pixel on page view, and only then does the consent tool start. Rejecting afterwards cannot undo the request already sent.
  • Reject hides the banner and nothing else. The button closes the banner but never tells the tag manager, so tags carry on as if the visitor had not answered.
  • Consent Mode taken as a blocker for every platform. Consent Mode only steers Google tags; other pixels need their own trigger rule or consent API.
  • Google consent reported as granted after reject, because the banner sends an update with the wrong values.

Test it in five minutes

  1. Open the site in a private window with the browser's Network tab open.
  2. Click reject all. Clear the Network list, then reload the page and click to a second page.
  3. Filter for the platforms you use: facebook.com/tr, analytics.tiktok.com, ct.pinterest.com, bat.bing.com, px.ads.linkedin.com. Nothing should appear.
  4. Filter for google: requests may appear in advanced mode, but their gcs value should be G100, never G111.
  5. In the Application tab, cookies such as _fbp, _ttp or _gcl_au should not be set.

The free scan runs the same test: one visit accepts the banner, a separate visit rejects it, and the report lists every platform that still sent requests after reject, with the request as evidence.

Run the free scan: it loads your page in a real browser, accepts and rejects the banner, follows redirects with test click IDs and reports what every platform received.

Check your own site

Sources

Based on the platforms' public documentation; menus and names change, so check the linked pages if a step looks different.