Why I Built a Free Tool on TagForge to Check Your Cookie Setup

I want to tell you about a problem I kept bumping into on client sites and the tool I built (on our latest new project: TagForge) to stop diagnosing it manually.

Over the years doing GTM and analytics work, I’ve audited a lot of marketing setups. And one pattern showed up so consistently that it stopped surprising me: a business would have a cookie banner, Google Tag Manager running, and GA4 installed — and yet something in the middle wasn’t quite right. The consent tool and the tracking setup weren’t properly connected. Data was either incomplete, unreliable, or both.

Nobody had done anything wrong deliberately. The cookie banner was there in good faith. GTM had been set up by someone competent. But the layer between them — the bit that tells your tracking tools whether a visitor has actually consented — was missing, broken, or misconfigured.

I got tired of finding this out through a manual audit every single time. So I built something.

What I built and why

TagForge is a new XAVA project I’ve been developing over the past few months. It started as a marketplace for pre-built GTM containers, properly configured, consent-aware, ready to import, aimed at WooCommerce and Shopify stores that want solid tracking without having to build everything from scratch.

As part of the launch, I built a free tool called the CMP Checker. CMP stands for Consent Management Platform, which is the technical name for the system behind your cookie banner. The checker scans any public website and tells you:

  • Which CMP you’re running or whether you have one at all
  • What platform your site is built on
  • Which consent signals were detected in your page source

It takes about 10 seconds. No account. No cookies set by the tool itself.

👉 Try it free at tagforge.io/check-your-cmp-status/

What I found when I launched TagForge CMP Checker

I launched the CMP Checker quietly earlier this week. Within 48 hours there had been 48 scans. Two of those led directly to conversations, one of which flagged something I wouldn’t have spotted otherwise: a WooCommerce site running OneTrust with no GTM container in sight.

That’s the value of the tool in one line. It surfaces things you didn’t know to look for.

The scan data so far is also quietly telling. Of the sites checked, 48% showed no recognised CMP at all. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re non-compliant, a CMP can be implemented in ways the scanner doesn’t pick up (yet!) but it’s a prompt worth following up on.

Why this matters for your business

If you’re running Google Ads, Meta Ads, or any kind of paid digital marketing, your tracking is the foundation everything is built on. Without accurate conversion data, you’re optimising your campaigns on incomplete information. Budgets get misallocated. Decisions get made based on numbers that don’t reflect reality.

A properly configured CMP connected to GTM via Google Consent Mode v2 doesn’t just tick a compliance box, it protects the integrity of your marketing data. It means your GA4 purchase events are reliable. Your Google Ads attribution is accurate. Your remarketing audiences are built on real consent. Correct attribution directly impacts your ROAS!

Screenshot showing Google definition of ROAS

The good news: if your setup has a gap, it’s usually fixable. And in most cases it doesn’t require rebuilding everything from scratch. It requires the right container, configured correctly for the CMP you’re already using.

What TagForge does

TagForge offers pre-built GTM containers for the most common CMP and platform combinations: Complianz on WooCommerce, Cookiebot, OneTrust, CookieYes, and more. Each container is built with Google Consent Mode v2 properly wired in, tested, and ready to import.

We also offer a done-for-you setup service for businesses that want the container installed, configured, and verified by someone who knows what they’re looking at (coming soon). That includes a walkthrough showing the tags firing correctly in GTM preview mode and GA4 DebugView, so you know it’s working before it goes live.

Where to start

The fastest thing you can do right now is run your site through the free CMP Checker. It’ll tell you what you’re working with in seconds.

👉 tagforge.io/check-your-cmp-status/

If you want to go deeper, a full explainer on how CMPs and GTM work together, what the four consent signals actually mean for your marketing, and how to choose the right CMP, I’ve written a detailed guide on the TagForge blog.

👉 Read: CMP and Google Tag Manager, Explained Without the Jargon – tagforge.io/blog And if you want a conversation about your specific setup, get in touch. That’s what we’re here for.

Amit Wadhwa

A self-motivated problem solver, with a knack for helping people understand technical jargon. I know WordPress. Over the past 15 years, I have broken it, put it back together and made it work. I am a self-taught WordPress expert. I am also the "What Not To Do with WordPress" guy. I have always been a determined problem solver, driven by the desire to understand why things break down. This natural curiosity has served me well over the last 15 years during which time I have looked at, browsed, studied, and designed websites for a multitude of people and businesses.