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Install the Tie Pixel with your consent banner (CMP)

For sites with a consent banner. Set up the Tie Pixel so it follows your shoppers' consent choices, on Shopify's banner, a third-party CMP or a tag manager.

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Written by Tim Hughes

Tie is built to respect your shoppers' choices, whether your site uses opt-out or opt-in consent. By default Tie works on an opt-out basis, so it runs until a shopper opts out and stops as soon as they do. Run the Tie Pixel behind a consent banner that loads as soon as your page does, so shoppers can make that choice right away. If your site uses opt-in consent, the Tie Pixel can be set to fire only after a visitor opts in. This article covers the two common setups, Shopify's built-in consent and a third-party consent management platform (CMP), plus what changes if you load the Tie Pixel through your own tag manager.

The short version

  • The Tie Pixel loads in the <head> of every page.

  • Your consent banner controls when the Tie loader runs on your storefront. With opt-out consent it runs until a visitor opts out. With opt-in consent it runs only after the visitor grants marketing or advertising consent.

  • Once a visitor opts out, or until they opt in on an opt-in setup, Tie collects nothing from your storefront on that visit. That is expected and correct, not a sign something is broken.

  • On Shopify, checkout works differently. The Tie Tracker pixel in Customer events runs inside Shopify's checkout, where your banner's script blocking does not reach, so it follows Shopify's own privacy settings instead. With our recommended settings it runs at checkout unless the shopper has opted out of the sale or sharing of their data. See the Shopify section below.

  • If you do not have a consent banner yet, set one up first. Shopify's built-in banner is the quickest option.

If you use Shopify's consent banner

If your consent banner uses Shopify's Customer Privacy API (Shopify's own cookie banner, or an app built on that API), set the Tie Tracker pixel to follow it. In Shopify, go to Settings, then Customer events, open Tie Tracker, set Permission to "Not required", and set Data sale to "Data collected qualifies as data sale." That is the name of an option in Shopify's menu, not a statement that Tie sells data. Shopify then stops the pixel for any shopper who opts out of the sale or sharing of their data, including through a Global Privacy Control signal. If your store needs opt-in consent before any marketing tag runs, set Permission to "Required" with Marketing selected instead, and expect fewer checkout events from shoppers who never answer your banner.

If you use a third-party CMP

For OneTrust, Termly, Cookiebot, and similar platforms, configure the CMP so the Tie loader is blocked until the visitor accepts your marketing or advertising category:

  1. Add the Tie loader to the <head> of every page.

  2. Tag it with your CMP's marketing or advertising category, so the CMP treats it as a gated script. Most CMPs do this with a script-blocking rule or a type="text/plain" plus data-category attribute on the tag.

  3. The CMP then executes the Tie loader only after the visitor consents, and stops loading it on later visits if consent is withdrawn.

Match the category to how you already classify other marketing tags (for example your ad pixels), so consent behaves consistently across your site.

On Shopify, also set the Tie Tracker pixel in Customer events to Permission "Not required" and Data sale to "Data collected qualifies as data sale," and turn on the data sharing opt-out page under Settings, then Customer privacy, for the US regions where you sell. The checkout part of the Tie Pixel runs inside Shopify's checkout, where your CMP's script blocking does not reach, so these settings are what apply there. It relies on your CMP passing consent to Shopify's Customer Privacy API, which most CMPs do through their Shopify app, so check that yours is connected.

If you load the Tie Pixel through your tag manager

A consent tool that works by rewriting script tags in the page cannot gate a tag your tag manager injects at runtime, because the rewrite only touches markup already in the page. Gate it on the tag manager side instead: fire the Tie loader from a trigger keyed on your consent tool's consent event for your marketing or advertising category. The result is the same. See Add the Tie Pixel loader through your tag manager.

What to have in place on your site

Tie respects your shoppers' choices best when the site around it is set up well. Check that your site does the following.

  • Keeps a current privacy policy. It should say that you use third-party identity-resolution and marketing technologies, and that you share visitor data with service providers and third parties for marketing purposes.

  • Keeps records of your consent setup. Hold on to your consent banner's configuration history and its logs of visitor consent and opt-out choices, including Global Privacy Control and other opt-out signals it receives, so you can show how it was set up at any point in time. We may ask to see them if a question about your setup comes up.

  • Keeps the Tie Pixel off pages aimed at children, and off pages where you knowingly collect sensitive personal information, unless you meet the stricter consent rules that apply to that data.

  • Publishes website terms of use that include binding arbitration and a class-action and mass-arbitration waiver, presented so that visitors accept them in a way that holds up.

What "consent-gated" means for your numbers

Because the Tie loader on your storefront fires only after consent, you will see fewer Tie storefront events than raw site sessions, especially from first-time visitors who have not answered the banner yet. This is the consent gate working as intended. A gap between total sessions and Tie events is expected and is not data loss.

Checkout and purchase events follow your Shopify privacy settings instead. With Permission set to "Not required", they drop only for shoppers who opt out. If you chose "Required", they also drop for shoppers who have not given marketing consent.

Verify it is working

Open your live site in Chrome with DevTools open before the page loads:

  • Decline consent: you should see no network calls to your Tie subdomain (zone.yourdomain.com).

  • Accept consent, then reload: the loader should return 200 and Tie events should begin firing.

Checkout and purchase events fire inside Shopify's checkout, so they never appear in your storefront console. We confirm those on our side.

Full steps are in Verify your Tie installation.

Common issues

  • Nothing fires even after accepting consent. Your CMP may not be releasing the Tie script on consent. Confirm the script's category matches the category the visitor accepted.

  • Events fire before consent, and you meant to gate them. The loader is not behind your consent tool yet. Move it behind the gate, or, if it is loaded by your tag manager, fire it from the consent trigger described above.

See Installed but not seeing data yet for the full troubleshooting path.

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