If you are unable to see the Piwik Pro consent banner on your website and are unsure why this is happening, this guide will provide you with the answers you need.
Piwik Pro offers not only analytics solutions for its customers but also privacy, and it also provides compliance tools to ensure adherence to privacy regulations that cover your business.
This includes the “Consent Manager” suite, which enables you to utilize Piwik Pro’s native consent banner to request and manage visitor consent on your website.
However, there may be rare situations where the Piwik Pro consent banner does not appear on your website. The reasons for this behaviour that I’ll be going over in this guide could include the following:
- Piwik Pro isn’t installed on your website
- The “Ask visitors for consent” feature is disabled
- Piwik Pro is configured to use a custom consent banner
- The Piwik Pro Consent Manager library is not loaded on your website
- The banner is working, but you’re unaware of it
Now that you have a brief overview of the possible causes let’s explore each one in more detail, along with the recommended actions to resolve them.
Piwik Pro Isn’t Installed on Your Website
When facing issues like this, the first step is to verify if Piwik Pro is installed on your live website.
It is necessary to do this because tracking implementations might not get published or deployed to the live website sometimes.
One quick way to check for the presence of the Piwik Pro script is to open your browser’s developer tools, go to the “Network” tab, and filter by “ppms” to display only Piwik Pro-related requests. Then, reload your website.
If you don’t see any Piwik Pro requests, it could mean that the Piwik Pro implementation hasn’t been published to the live site.
Another scenario could be the use of Piwik Pro server-side tagging, where the Google Analytics (GA4) tag is responsible for collecting and sending the data to the tagging server, which is then processed by a GA4 client in your sGTM container and utilized by a Piwik Pro tag.
In both cases, you should not find the Piwik Pro tracking script in the website code. However, if you do see the Piwik Pro script using any of the methods outlined in the Piwik Pro debugging and troubleshooting guide, check the request status to see if a Content Security Policy (CSP) is blocking the Piwik Pro request.
If everything appears to be in order and the issue persists, we will move on to the next potential cause for the missing consent banner.
“Ask Visitors for Consent” Not Enabled
After confirming the status of the Piwik Pro script on your website, the next step is to verify whether you have enabled the “Consent Manager” for your Piwik Pro instance.
To do this, click on the menu and select the “Administration” option.
In the “Administration” view, navigate to the “Privacy” section. There, check if the “Ask visitors for consent” setting is enabled. If it is disabled, as shown in the image below, this is likely the reason the banner is not appearing.
To resolve this, simply enable the “Ask visitors for consent” setting, and the Piwik Pro consent manager banner will begin displaying on your website.
Suppose you still do not see the banner after enabling this setting. In that case, the next step is to investigate the other configurations within the “Ask visitors for consent” settings, which I will cover shortly.
Note that this may sometimes be intentionally disabled, particularly in cases where the business is using Piwik Pro’s anonymous data tracking without relying on cookies or session data.
Configured Piwik Pro to Use a Custom Consent Form
While reviewing the “Ask Consent” settings in the Piwik Pro Admin section, you should also check whether you have configured your Piwik Pro instance to use a custom consent banner. If this option is enabled, you are responsible for creating and deploying the consent banner on your website, and Piwik Pro will not display the native consent banner.
To verify this setting, click the “View” option under “Consent Settings” in the “Privacy” tab of your admin section.
This will open a modal window. Scroll to the bottom of the settings, where you will find the “Use a custom consent form” option. Check if it is disabled, as shown in the image below.
If the setting is enabled, as shown in the image below:
You need to confirm whether your organization intends to use a custom consent banner.
For example, suppose you are using third-party consent management vendors like CookieBot, Termly, or CookieYes, and have integrated these CMPs (Consent Management Platforms) with Piwik Pro.
In that case, you can continue with this configuration. I’ve previously covered integration details for the following CMPs:
However, if you prefer to use the native Piwik Pro consent banner instead of a third-party CMP, simply disable the “Use a custom consent form” setting and click the “Save” button to apply the changes.
After saving, reload your website and clear the cache if necessary. The Piwik Pro consent banner should now appear.
If the banner still does not show up after making this change, it could be due to other reasons, which I will explore further in this guide.
The Piwik Pro Consent Manager Library Not On Your Website
If you’ve followed all the troubleshooting steps outlined so far and still can’t see the Piwik Pro consent banner on your website, there may be additional factors to consider.
Suppose the issue persists even after clearing your website’s cookies. In that case, you should check whether you’re using any server-side data collection mechanisms (such as tagging or tracking) for Piwik Pro or review how Piwik Pro was installed on your website.
Normally, when you install the Piwik Pro script on your site (referring to the hard-code approach), the code typically includes two parameters: “tm” and “cm.” These parameters indicate that the Piwik Pro Tag Manager and the Consent Manager suite are loaded and executed on your website.
If you’re using an implementation method where the consent manager suite isn’t included when the Piwik Pro tracking code is loaded, the consent banner won’t appear for website visitors.
In some cases, server-side tagging or tracking methods you adopt for your website can cause you not to load the Piwik Pro Consent Manager suite library on your site.
This can also occur when using plugins or integrations that install Piwik Pro on your website. For example, if you’re using the “Piwik Pro Analytics” template in Google Tag Manager, it does not load the Piwik Pro consent manager suite within the tracking library code that the template injects into your website.
Excerpt from the Piwik Pro documentation.
While some implementation methods may not load the consent manager suite, they are not inherently flawed. These approaches often focus on loading only the Piwik Pro analytics suite, intending to simplify tracking configurations like eCommerce tracking and custom dimensions.
However, it is still possible to use your current implementation while ensuring the Piwik Pro consent banner is displayed. The specific advice I would offer may vary based on your particular Piwik Pro setup.
If you’re using server-side tagging or other advanced configurations, feel free to reach out with your needs.
It’s Working (You Just Don’t Know It)
If you’ve reviewed all the potential issues I’ve covered in this guide and still don’t see the consent banner on your website, it’s possible that the banner is actually being displayed, but there are steps you can take to confirm this.
The first step is to clear your cookies or visit your website in an incognito window.
This is because, in Piwik Pro’s consent settings, you can configure the duration for which the consent is valid, ranging from one day to three years.
For instance, if you previously saw the banner but don’t see it on subsequent visits using the same device and browser, it won’t reappear, regardless of how many times you refresh the page.
This is due to the consent being stored in your cookies, and it isn’t an issue but an expected behaviour.
To check, clear your cookies or open the site in an incognito browser window to see if the privacy banner reappears.
If this works and you see the banner, you should be fine, as there isn’t a problem here.
However, If the banner still doesn’t appear, check if you’re using server-side tagging or tracking with Piwik Pro, as these setups may not automatically load the native consent banner.
If your website doesn’t use server-side data collection and you haven’t cleared your browser cookies, further assess whether the issue is happening on a subdomain. If you’ve configured Piwik Pro to share consent across subdomains, the consent settings will carry over as you navigate between them, without showing a new banner. In this case, clearing your cookies will allow you to verify this.
Another rare theory is that the consent banner is indeed on your website, but some technology or tool you are using on the site is preventing it from being visible.
To test this theory, clear your browser cookies, reload your website, open the “Console” tab, and run the following code to see if the banner displays.
If it shos the Piwik Pro native consent banner, you may need to work with your development team to resolve the issue and ensure the banner is visible to users.
Wrapping Things Up
It’s been a pleasure helping you understand some of the reasons why your Piwik Pro consent banner may not be appearing on your website. I didn’t include some factors that might also be the cause of behaviours like this because Piwik Pro deprecated the feature responsible for this, for example, the region consent display settings.
Not only have I walked you through troubleshooting these issues, but I have also provided solutions to resolve them.
If you need help with Piwik Pro or any other analytics-related concerns, feel free to reach out using the contact form or email address on the DumbData “Contact Us” page. Until then, happy measuring!
