What Is Consent Simulation?

Consent simulation is an automated testing method that monitors a website's network traffic, from initial page load through every consent choice a visitor could make, to detect which tags fire before consent, after opt-out, or in violation of a signal like Global Privacy Control. It verifies actual tag behavior rather than assuming a CMP's presence guarantees compliance.

Consent simulation exists because a CMP banner tells you nothing about what’s actually happening under the hood. Running it means systematically testing every consent state a real visitor could land in (no choice made, full consent, partial consent, opt-out, Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal present) and capturing every network request that fires in each. Where manual review or GTM Preview Mode checks one state on one page, consent simulation covers all of them, consistently, which is what makes it usable as ongoing proof rather than a one-time spot check.