HubSpot cookie banner: set it up, and know what it doesn’t block

HubSpot’s cookie banner or a consent tool: which do you need?

The answer depends on which scripts run on your site, and who can stop them before the visitor says yes. HubSpot’s banner can only hold back what HubSpot loads itself.

Our view: on a pure HubSpot site, a second tool adds cost and a second place where things break. As soon as tags arrive from other places, a consent tool is the cleaner choice, because one tool then decides for every script on the page.

What the HubSpot cookie banner blocks, and what it doesn’t

With an opt-in banner, HubSpot waits for the visitor’s choice before it sets its tracking cookies. Everything else depends on how a tool got onto the page.

Check it yourself in a private browser window. Open your site, don’t click the banner, and look at the cookies in the browser’s developer tools. Every non-necessary cookie you see there was set without consent.

How to set up the HubSpot cookie banner, step by step

These steps use the new editor (v2). If you see a button “Switch manually” at the top of the Cookies tab, your account still runs the old editor; switch first and assign each old policy to its domain. You need permission to edit website settings.

1. Step 01

   Open the banners for your domain

   Go to Settings > Privacy & Consent > Cookies. HubSpot domains appear on their own. For a site outside HubSpot, click Add external domain; HubSpot checks that its tracking code runs there. www.example.com and example.com count as two domains, so add the one your site really loads on.

   

2. Step 02

   Name the banner and choose where it shows

   Give it an internal name. Leave the URL path empty for the whole domain, or enter a subfolder such as de. Pick the countries; with none selected, every visitor sees it. HubSpot reads the country from the visitor’s IP address, so a VPN can switch the banner off.

   

   

3. Step 03

   Leave the advanced switches off

   Deactivate cookies and Allow all cookies both hide the banner on the pages and countries you chose. Use them only for a deliberate exception, such as no tracking at all on a members’ area.

   

4. Step 04

   Choose the banner type

   Notification only informs, and cookies load straight away. Opt-in loads them after a yes; HubSpot marks it “Suggested for: Europe”. Opt-out loads them and lets visitors say no. Tick Allow opt-in by category if visitors should choose analytics, functionality and advertising separately.

   

5. Step 05

   Set the language and texts

   Pick the default language and HubSpot fills in its standard text, German included. Rewrite the notification text so it names your tools and links to your privacy policy. Keep the button labels short and plain.

   

6. Step 06

   Fill in the categories and add a Decline all button

   Each category gets a label and a description. Name the tools behind each one, for example “Google Analytics, HubSpot analytics”. Then tick Show decline all button, so the category window offers Accept all and Decline all side by side.

   

   

7. Step 07

   Publish and switch off any old default banner

   Click Publish. The list shows each banner with its URLs, countries and an Active switch. If you turned on HubSpot’s data privacy settings earlier, HubSpot already created a default opt-in banner called “GDPR Policy” for all URLs and countries. Keep one banner per page and country, and switch the other off.

   

8. Step 08

   Match the style to your site

   Under Global consent banner style and preview, click Customize. Set the position, background, font and buttons, and preview each banner. The style applies to all banners on the domain. Give Accept and Decline the same weight, so neither looks like the default.

   

9. Step 09

   Add a Cookie settings link to the footer

   Copy the code under Cookie Settings Button and put it in your footer, on HubSpot pages and on external pages alike. The link reopens the banner so visitors can change their mind. Only opt-in banners can be reopened this way; a notification banner can’t.

   

10. Step 10

    Test it as a visitor

    Open the site in a private window. The banner should appear before anything else happens. Click Cookies settings, check the categories, decline, and confirm in the developer tools that no __hstc or hubspotutk cookie appears. Visitors who already had HubSpot cookies before the banner went live see it only once those expire.

    

    

Using Cookiebot, Usercentrics or Borlabs with HubSpot

If a consent tool runs your site, HubSpot’s banner has to step back, and HubSpot still needs to know what the visitor chose. There are three ways to do it.

1. Step 01

   Cookiebot: the marketplace app

   For sites on HubSpot, Cookiebot has an app in the HubSpot Marketplace. You enter your Cookiebot domain group ID, and the app turns HubSpot’s own banner off for that domain. Read the reviews first; the app had a rating of 2.6 out of 5 in October 2026.
2. Step 02

   Any consent tool: HubSpot’s consent API

   Following HubSpot’s consent banner API, your developer sets window.disableHubSpotCookieBanner = true at the top of the page, so HubSpot’s banner never shows. When the visitor chooses, the consent tool calls setHubSpotConsent with analytics, advertisement and functionality as yes or no. HubSpot doesn’t remember that value itself, so the consent tool must send it again on every page view.
3. Step 03

   The blunt way: block the HubSpot script

   Many consent tools can hold back the whole HubSpot tracking code until the visitor agrees. Blocking works, but forms and chat that come with the tracking code may then load late or not at all. Test a form submission with and without consent before you go live.

Google Consent Mode v2 with the HubSpot banner

Google needs to know the visitor’s choice before its tags measure or personalise ads for visitors from the EU, the EEA and the UK. Without that signal, Google Ads loses conversions and audiences from those visitors. How the signal gets there depends on how Google is connected.

Basic means Google’s tags wait until the visitor agrees. Advanced means they load at once and send pings without cookies until consent, which Google uses to model the missing conversions. Your data protection officer decides which one your site may use.

What changes in your HubSpot reports when visitors decline cookies

Your traffic doesn’t drop because of the banner. HubSpot still counts visits and page views, anonymously. What changes is that those visits can’t be tied to a person any more.

• No page history on the contact. A visitor who declines and then fills in a form becomes a contact with zero page views. Sales sees the form, not the five pages read before it.
• Sources shift to direct traffic. HubSpot takes the original source from the page the form was sent from. If the visitor came from a LinkedIn ad and submits on that same page, the UTM parameters are still in the address and the source is right. If they clicked to another page first, the contact shows as direct traffic.
• Google Analytics shows fewer visitors than HubSpot. HubSpot counts declined visits anonymously, Google Analytics without Consent Mode doesn’t count them at all. Pick one tool as the source for traffic numbers.
• Lead scoring on page views weakens. Points for visited pages only reach contacts who accepted, so build your lead scoring on form answers and email engagement as well.

1. Step 01

   See a contact’s choice

   Open the contact, go to Activities and include Analytics events in the filter. An accepted banner shows as “accepted cookie tracking on” with the page address.

   

   

2. Step 02

   Build a segment by consent

   Create a contact segment with the property Privacy consent and the values Approved, Declined or Revoked. With categories switched on, Approved and Declined refer to the analytics cookies. The property holds the cookie choice only; permission to send email is a separate setting, covered in our double opt-in guide.

   

3. Step 03

   Report on banner clicks

   In a custom report (Professional or Enterprise), choose Cookie banner as the data source. Then use clicks or views, and fields such as analytics category consent, to see the share of visitors who accept.

   

   

Common problems with the HubSpot cookie banner

Cookie banner settings for Germany, Austria and Switzerland

HubSpot gives you the controls. Your data protection officer or lawyer decides which ones your site needs. These are the settings they usually ask about.

• German texts. Choose German as the default language and HubSpot fills in its German standard texts. For a site in German and English, create one banner per language path, for example de and en.
• Countries. The group European Union covers Germany and Austria. Switzerland, Liechtenstein and the UK are outside it and need their own selection, or leave the countries empty so every visitor sees the banner.
• Decline as easy as accept. Show decline all puts Decline all next to Accept all, and the style editor gives both buttons the same look.
• The privacy policy. Name every tool and cookie the banner covers there, and link it from the banner text. HubSpot’s list of the cookies it sets covers the HubSpot part.
• Hosting and data processing. Where HubSpot stores the data and how to accept its data processing agreement is a separate question; our guide to the HubSpot EU data centre covers it.

How we set up cookie consent in a HubSpot portal

Most consent problems we see come from tags nobody listed. We start with a list of what loads on the site, and open the banner editor after that.

1. Step 01

   List what loads

   We open every template of the site in a fresh browser and note each script and cookie, and where it was added: HubSpot integration, header code, Tag Manager or a module.
2. Step 02

   Decide the banner

   From that list follows HubSpot’s banner or a consent tool, by domain. Your data protection officer signs off the type and the texts.
3. Step 03

   Wire the tags

   HubSpot’s integrations for Google, the consent listener for pasted tags, or the consent tool’s blocking. Google Consent Mode where ads run.
4. Step 04

   Fix the reporting

   A segment and a report for consent, sources checked against form pages, and lead scoring that doesn’t rely on page views alone.
5. Step 05

   Check it twice a year

   New tools arrive with every campaign. A private-window test and a look at the banner report every six months catch them. The same test is one of the checks in our HubSpot portal audit.

Frequently asked questions