Install and first setup

Install the plugin

1. Download the free plugin from the Cookie Consent page on brainrune.com. In wp-admin, go to Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin, choose the zip, click Install Now, then Activate.

2. The banner starts at once, in Opt-in mode, with texts in your site’s language when one of the six ready languages matches it (English, Romanian, German, French, Italian, Spanish).

3. Open Cookie Consent in the admin menu. Only administrators see it.

Tip

Hide from administrators is on by default, so you do not see the banner while you are signed in as an administrator. Open the site in a private window to see what visitors see.

The screen

Cookie Consent has six tabs:

• Dashboard: what the banner does today and a list of checks, each with a Change button.
• Behaviour: the banner mode, the cookie lifetime, the policy version, Google Consent Mode and the other switches that decide how the answer is used.
• Categories: which categories the banner offers, and which embeds wait for them.
• Banner: the buttons, the design and a live preview.
• Texts: every word on the banner, and the link to your privacy policy.
• Add-ons: what Cookie Consent Pro adds.

With Pro, the Blocking, Cookie scan, Regions, A/B test and Licence tabs appear too.

First setup

1. Open the Dashboard. The four tiles at the top show Banner, Before the answer, Checks passed and Policy version.

2. Go through What is fine and what to change. Every row that is not fine has a Change button that opens the right tab.

3. Usually the only thing left is the privacy policy. Open the Texts tab, click Scan next to Privacy policy URL, and the plugin finds the page set in Settings > Privacy, or a published page with a usual privacy slug. Leave the field empty to use the page set in Settings > Privacy.

4. On the Banner tab, set the layout and colours. The Live preview updates before you save.

5. Click Save changes.

6. Open the site in a private window and check that the banner shows, that Necessary only and Accept all both close it, and that the reopen button brings it back.

The checks on the Dashboard

Check	Fine when
The banner shows	Show the consent banner is on
Nothing runs before the answer	Default behaviour is Opt-in
Saying no is one click	Necessary only button is on
The privacy policy is linked	A privacy policy URL is set, here or in Settings > Privacy
Changing your mind is easy	Persistent reopen button is on
Google hears the answer	Google Consent Mode v2 is on
Pixel Tracking waits for the answer	Shown when Pixel Tracking is installed. Fine unless Pixel Tracking is set to load tags without asking
Embeds wait too	Shown while the External media category is on. Fine when YouTube, Vimeo and the other embeds are all blocked

Add the shortcodes

• [brl_consent_preferences] places a button that reopens the choices, for example in the footer.
• [brl_privacy_request] places a form where visitors ask for a copy of their data or for it to be erased. Put it on your privacy page. See the FAQ.

Moving from Pixel Tracking’s built-in banner

Before version 1.1.0, Pixel Tracking had its own banner. If you used it, install Cookie Consent: on activation it takes over the banner settings Pixel Tracking held, once, so your texts, colours and policy version stay the same.

Uninstalling

Deleting the plugin keeps your settings, so a reinstall picks up where you left off. To remove them too, add this line to wp-config.php before you delete the plugin:

define( 'BRL_CONSENT_REMOVE_DATA', true );