Programmatic Advertising: Why Are Consent Walls Gaining Ground Among French Publishers? 🧱

Until recently, many internet users visiting French publishers could simply choose between “Accept all” and “Reject all” when asked for consent to advertising cookies and other trackers.

The problem?

According to a Didomi figure cited in our original French post, the average non-consent rate was around 40%. For ad-funded publishers, that can have very real consequences:
📉 Lower fill rates
📉 Lower CPMs
📉 More bid-request throttling by SSPs
📉 Lower advertising revenue

Why do impressions without consent often monetize less effectively?

On the buy side, DSP buying algorithms can assign less value to impressions without the signals they typically rely on. The absence of consent for certain trackers makes several tasks harder:
🚫🆔 Audience targeting
🚫🚧 Frequency capping across sites and devices
🚫📏 Campaign measurement and attribution

That does not mean consentless impressions are worthless, or that every form of advertising requires consent. Contextual advertising and other privacy-conscious approaches can still create value. But the commercial gap can be significant.

What is a consent wall — and how does “consent or pay” work?

A consent wall, often described as a “consent or pay” model, gives visitors a choice:

• Accept certain advertising trackers and access the content without paying
• Pay a fee or subscription to access the content without consenting to those trackers

For publishers, the attraction is obvious: the model may encourage more visitors to consent, helping restore addressability and monetization. Consent rates above 85% have been reported in some contexts, although results vary and should not be treated as a market-wide benchmark.

But there is an important legal nuance: in France, the CNIL does not give every publisher blanket permission to impose a consent wall. Whether a particular “consent or pay” setup is valid must be assessed case by case, including whether users have a genuine alternative and whether consent is freely given.

Why are French publishers interested in consent walls?

Major French media and digital businesses — including Le Monde, Le Figaro, Leboncoin, Prisma Media and Webedia — have experimented with or adopted different forms of consent-or-pay access. Their approaches are not necessarily identical.

For an advertising-funded publisher, the economic logic is straightforward: when a substantial share of visitors refuses advertising trackers, traditional programmatic monetization can become more challenging. Consent walls attempt to balance two sources of revenue: advertising supported by consent and direct payments from readers.

Could EU regulation change the future of consent walls?

Here comes the plot twist. 👩‍⚖️

The European Commission's Digital Omnibus proposals have raised questions about how consent interfaces and browser-level privacy preferences could evolve. Ideas under discussion include making consent choices easier and enabling users to express certain preferences through their browser or operating system.

However, proposals are not the same as enacted law. The final rules, any exceptions for publishers, and their practical consequences depend on the legislative process. It would be premature to assume that all consent walls will be prohibited — or that all will remain unaffected.

For AdTech, this uncertainty matters. A change in the way consent is requested, stored or communicated could affect addressability, auction dynamics and publishers' advertising revenue.

What should programmatic media buyers do about fragmented audiences?

While the regulatory debate continues, media traders still need to reach audiences across three different environments:

🎯 Cookie-based inventory
🎯 Cookieless inventory
🎯 Inventory where users have not consented to certain advertising trackers

These environments are not interchangeable. Targeting and measurement must respect the consent signals, applicable law and the capabilities of each buying platform.

At GreyFox Ads, we're a French programmatic curation specialist focused on a higher-quality Open Web. We build curated deals designed to help media traders work across fragmented environments, using appropriate targeting methods for each.

And that's not all. 😉

📡 Supply Path Optimization (SPO): direct publisher relationships and resellers that add genuine value
🚫 Exclusion of Made-for-Advertising (MFA) websites and subdomains
🛡️ Brand safety filters
📐 Selection of ad formats and video players with stronger on-screen presence (screenshare)
👌 Simple activation through curated deals
🪟 Transparent costs

The key takeaway

Consent walls are not simply a UX trend. They reflect a deeper tension between user choice, privacy regulation and the economics of advertising-funded publishing. For advertisers and agencies, the challenge is to build effective programmatic strategies without assuming every impression comes with the same identifiers or permissions.

Looking for a quality partner for your display and video campaigns?

📩 Contact GreyFox Ads to discuss your programmatic advertising challenges.

Original French LinkedIn post: https://lnkd.in/e6eMK9x6