Fourteen real, named cookie consent banners show what compliant, on-brand consent looks like. GOV.UK, New Balance, Hyundai Motorsport, Coventry University, Glossier, HelloFresh, Dishoom, Google, Filmin, Orange, GameStop, Winchester Cathedral, ING, and SNCF all appear below.
Each one gets broken down for the specific design and copy choice that makes it work. The groups are compliance done right, on-brand personality, and format or audience fit. You will also find real banner text to adapt, the patterns that make a banner non-compliant, and how to apply the lessons to your site.
What Makes a Good Cookie Consent Banner?
A good cookie consent banner gives Accept and Reject equal visual weight. It states in plain language what data it collects and why. Granular category control sits one tap away, the design matches the site's brand, and a visitor can change their mind later. It also blocks non-essential cookies until the visitor actually agrees. Every banner below earns its place because it demonstrates at least one of these six principles clearly.
Accept and reject sit at the same level
Reject All must be the same size, style, and contrast as Accept All. Both sit on the first layer the visitor sees, not a second click away. Community reporting around a 2025 German administrative court ruling describes this exact requirement. A Reject All button must be immediately visible on the first layer, not hidden behind several menu levels. The French regulator CNIL reinforced the same principle in a December 2024 formal notice. It flagged banners where the reject option appeared as a plain text link in a smaller font, while Accept repeated as a full button. For the underlying concept, see what a cookie banner is.
The language is plain, and it says what and why
A compliant banner names the categories in plain words. It says "Accept All" and "Reject All," not "OK" or a vague "More Options." GOV.UK's own cookie banner component states the standard directly.
We use some essential cookies to make this service work. We'd also like to use analytics cookies so we can understand how you use the service and make improvements.
Two sentences name the categories and the reason, with no jargon.
Granular control is one tap away
A visitor should reach per-category consent in one tap, not several menu layers. The standard categories are:
- Essential or necessary cookies
- Analytics cookies
- Marketing or advertising cookies
- Functional cookies
A preference center holds these toggles. It stays reachable from a "Manage Preferences" or "Customize" button on the first layer, next to Accept and Reject.
It matches the brand, not a default template
A banner that uses the site's own colors, fonts, and voice reads as an intentional part of the product, not a bolted-on legal notice. The on-brand examples further down, Glossier, HelloFresh, Dishoom, and Google, show four different ways to do this without weakening the reject option. A cookie banner is one of the website's legal pages every site needs, alongside a cookie policy and a privacy policy.
You can change your mind later
A persistent, unobtrusive revisit control lets a visitor withdraw or change consent as easily as they gave it. A small floating icon or a footer link both work. GOV.UK's implementation guidance is explicit on one point: this control should never use position: fixed in a way that covers focused content. That guidance exists to satisfy WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.11, Focus Not Obscured.
It blocks non-essential cookies before consent
The banner must stop analytics and marketing tags from firing until the visitor accepts them. A banner that only appears after the page has loaded, while the tracking scripts already ran, is cosmetic, not compliant. Developers raise this gap constantly: the popup shows, the visitor clicks a choice, but the pixels and tags fired the moment the page opened. Under GDPR and ePrivacy, non-essential cookies need prior consent, so the block has to happen before the script runs, not after.
Compliance-First Cookie Banner Examples (Equal Choice, Done Right)
These four banners get the hardest part right. They make rejecting cookies exactly as easy as accepting them.
GOV.UK: the reference standard for honest banner text
GOV.UK's cookie banner states its purpose in two short sentences.
We use some essential cookies to make this service work. We'd also like to use analytics cookies so we can understand how you use the service and make improvements.
Accept, Reject, and a "View cookies" link sit at equal visual weight. The component's own design guidance forbids position: fixed, so the banner never traps keyboard focus. The lesson: plain, honest text plus equal choice is the baseline every banner should clear, not a ceiling to aim for. One honest note: the banner is visually plain and carries no brand warmth. That fits a government service, but it would read as bare on a consumer site.
New Balance: two buttons with no visual thumb on the scale
New Balance's consent popup uses near-identical button styling for its two choices, with minimal color difference between them. Neither button pulls the eye more than the other, so the choice reads as genuinely free rather than steered. The principle: if one button is bigger, brighter, or higher-contrast than the other, the choice is not really equal. That holds no matter what the button labels say. One gap: the first layer offers little explanation of what the cookies are actually for. That context waits for a second click.
Hyundai Motorsport: accept, reject, and preferences on one line
Hyundai Motorsport's banner places Accept, Reject, and Preferences in a bottom-left box. All three buttons sit "at the same level," rather than one prominent action and two afterthoughts. The principle: three equal actions beat a prominent accept button paired with a buried settings link. One honest note: a compact corner box can be easy to miss on a page as visually busy as a motorsport site.
Coventry University: necessary vs additional, spelled out
Coventry University's full-width footer banner names the distinction between necessary and additional cookies directly in the banner copy. Three buttons sit alongside it: accept, reject, and settings. The principle: telling visitors which cookies are optional, in the banner itself, builds trust before they even open the preference center. One honest note: a full-width footer bar takes up more of a mobile screen than a compact box would.
On-Brand Cookie Banner Examples (Compliant and Full of Personality)
A cookie banner does not have to be a grey box. These four keep the brand's voice front and center while staying compliant.
Glossier: a cookie banner that says "Hi!"
Glossier's banner opens with a casual "Hi!" It highlights its cookie-policy link in the brand's signature bright blue, inside an otherwise standard popup. The principle: a warm greeting and an on-brand accent color make a required interruption feel less like friction. One honest note: playful copy is only a win if Reject stays exactly as easy to find as Accept. Verify that parity whenever brand copy gets added to a banner.
HelloFresh: "HelloFresh Cookies (yum!)"
HelloFresh's banner carries a playful heading and a purpose line in the same tone.
HelloFresh Cookies (yum!) We use them for a more personal (and tasty!) browsing experience.
Banner colors get pulled straight from the site's palette. The principle: brand humor works as long as the actual purpose of the cookies stays legible underneath the joke. One honest note: playful copy can bury the "why" if it skips a plain-language sentence about what data is collected.
Dishoom: brand voice in a corner box
Dishoom's bottom-right box carries distinctive, on-brand copy alongside standard accept, reject, and customize buttons. The principle: even a small, unobtrusive banner format can carry real brand personality without adding visual weight. One honest note: a bottom-right box can collide with a live-chat widget anchored in the same corner. Check for overlap before shipping.
Google: a big, plain, unmistakable choice
Google's cookie notice uses a large popup in Google's own colors and logo style. It presents one unmistakable accept-or-reject choice at massive scale. The principle: at any traffic volume, the choice itself should be impossible to miss or misread. One honest note: granular control sits behind a "more options" step rather than one tap. That adds friction for a visitor who wants to pick categories immediately.
Cookie Banner Examples by Format and Audience
The right banner format also depends on where visitors are and what the site does. Here are four that fit their specific context.
Filmin: a center popup in the visitor's language
Filmin's banner renders as a center-aligned popup, localized into Spanish for a Spanish-speaking audience, with clearly labeled choices. The principle: serve the banner in the visitor's actual language. Do not rely on a browser's auto-translate to carry a legal choice correctly. One honest note: a center popup is the most interruptive format available, so it needs to be dismissible in a single action.
Orange: one consent choice synced across devices
Orange's consent setup synchronizes a visitor's choice across devices, so a logged-in user consents once instead of repeatedly. Didomi's case study on the implementation reports roughly a 10% increase in consent rate after the sync went live. The principle: for an audience that logs in, remembering consent across devices removes repeat friction. One honest note: the sync depends on the visitor being signed in, so anonymous visitors still see the banner on every device.
GameStop: a US opt-out banner, not an EU opt-in one
GameStop's banner runs a US-style opt-out model, including a "Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information" control. It pairs that with upfront preference personalization, rather than a single Accept button. The principle: US visitors get an opt-out choice under CCPA-style law, and EU visitors get an opt-in choice under GDPR. Geotargeting decides which one a visitor sees. One honest note: pairing an opt-out control with heavy upfront personalization can add friction for a visitor who just wants a quick decision.
Winchester Cathedral: an IAB TCF banner for ad-funded sites
Winchester Cathedral's right-aligned banner runs on the IAB Transparency and Consent Framework. It discloses the vendors and purposes behind its programmatic advertising. The principle: any site running ad-tech through TCF-participating vendors needs that same vendor and purpose disclosure. The first layer still needs a one-tap reject, even with a long vendor list behind it. One honest note: TCF vendor lists get long fast, so the first-layer choice has to stay simple even when the second layer is dense.
Two more examples deserve a mention in this same category. ING runs cross-domain consent, so a choice on one property in the group carries to the others. SNCF collects over 1.3 million consent decisions a month across hundreds of sites and apps, according to Didomi's case study. Both prove that equal-choice banners scale to high-traffic, multi-property operations.
Cookie Banner Text Examples You Can Adapt
A compliant banner names the cookie categories and the reason for each in plain language. That structure repeats whether the tone is neutral or on-brand. Three real patterns below cover the essential-plus-analytics case, a plain ecommerce pattern, and an on-brand pattern.
- Essential plus analytics (the GOV.UK pattern):
We use some essential cookies to make this service work. We'd also like to use analytics cookies so we can understand how you use the service and make improvements.
- Plain ecommerce or marketing pattern: "We use cookies to run this store, remember your cart, and show you relevant products. Accept All, Reject All, or manage your preferences below."
- On-brand pattern (in the style of HelloFresh's approach): "[Brand] Cookies (hi there!) We use them to keep your cart working and make your visit a little more personal. Accept, Reject, or pick exactly what you're comfortable with."
Every one of these still needs your site's actual cookie categories. Anything beyond the essentials needs a lawyer's review before it goes live. A text pattern is a starting shape, not a finished legal document. Every compliant banner also links to a cookie policy that spells out the details in full.
What a Bad Cookie Consent Banner Looks Like
A weak cookie banner violates one of the five criteria above, usually to manufacture consent rather than to genuinely offer a choice. Four patterns show up most often.
- A buried reject option: Accept All is a full-size button; Reject is a smaller text link, a lower-contrast color, or sits a menu layer deeper. CNIL's December 2024 formal notice flagged this exact pattern and ordered publishers to fix it. It violates equal prominence directly.
- Confirmshaming or pre-ticked boxes: copy that guilts a visitor into accepting, such as "You'll miss out on personalized deals!", or checkboxes that start pre-selected. Both manufacture consent instead of collecting it, which violates the positive-action principle.
- A wall of jargon or a bare "OK": copy that never says what data is collected or why, so the visitor cannot make an informed choice. This violates the plain-language principle.
- A sticky banner that traps focus: a banner pinned with
position: fixedthat covers page content or blocks keyboard navigation past it. This violates the accessibility principle GOV.UK's own guidance calls out directly.
How to Apply These Cookie Banner Lessons to Your Own Site
Three actions turn these 14 examples into a working banner on your own site.
- Make Reject exactly as easy to find and click as Accept, and put granular category control one tap away from the first layer.
- Match the banner's language and layout to your brand, and match its consent model, opt-in or opt-out, to each visitor's region.
- Confirm the banner actually blocks non-essential scripts before consent fires, not just cosmetically after the page has already loaded.
Building all three by hand is exactly where most sites slip. A reject button ends up styled as an afterthought, or a banner fires marketing tags before a visitor has chosen anything. Consently's cookie consent banner ships four layouts, bar, box, popup, and full-screen, with equal-weight Accept and Reject templates. A one-tap preference center, geotargeted opt-in and opt-out models, and script and iframe auto-blocking come standard. Every layout ships in 35 languages and meets WCAG 2.2 AA. Pair it with a matching privacy policy template. Build your banner free.
FAQs
What are good examples of cookie consent banners?
GOV.UK's banner is a strong example of honest, plain text with equal Accept and Reject. New Balance shows equal button styling with no visual bias. Glossier and HelloFresh show on-brand voice without weakening the reject option. All 14 examples above are grouped by what each one specifically teaches.
What makes a good cookie consent banner?
A good cookie consent banner gives Accept and Reject equal visual weight and states in plain language what data it collects and why. Granular category control sits one tap away, and the design matches the site's brand. Visitors can change their mind later, and the banner actually blocks non-essential cookies before consent, not just cosmetically.
What should a cookie consent banner say?
A compliant banner's text should cover:
- What data or cookies the site collects
- Why it collects them
- A clear Accept All and Reject All choice
- A link to the site's cookie policy
GOV.UK's pattern is a useful model.
We use some essential cookies to make this service work. We'd also like to use analytics cookies so we can understand how you use the service and make improvements.
Is a cookie consent banner legally required?
It depends on the visitor's location and the cookies used. Under GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive, EU and UK visitors need an opt-in banner before any non-essential cookie loads. Those same laws also require a site to explain its data use, which is what a privacy policy is for. US visitors generally fall under state-level opt-out models instead, often through a "Do Not Sell or Share" link. A site using only strictly necessary cookies, such as a shopping cart or login session, typically does not need a consent banner at all.
Do accept and reject buttons have to be equal?
Regulators increasingly say yes. CNIL's December 2024 formal notice ordered publishers to fix banners where Reject appeared as a smaller, lower-contrast link while Accept repeated as a full button. Community reporting around a 2025 German administrative court decision describes the same expectation. A Reject All button must be visible on the first layer, not buried behind several menu levels. Treat unequal buttons as a compliance risk, not a design preference.
What is a cookie banner dark pattern?
A cookie banner dark pattern is a design choice that manipulates consent instead of collecting it honestly. Four forms show up most often:
- A hidden or faint reject button
- A pre-ticked consent box
- Confirmshaming copy that guilts a visitor into accepting
- A cookie wall that blocks the site until the visitor accepts
Regulators including CNIL treat these as compliance violations, not acceptable design choices.
How do I create a cookie consent banner for my website?
To create a cookie consent banner:
- Scan your site for the cookies and trackers it actually sets
- Choose a layout and add equal-weight Accept, Reject, and a preference center
- Set the right consent model for each visitor region: opt-in for the EU and UK, opt-out for the US
- Confirm non-essential scripts stay blocked until the visitor consents
Consently's cookie consent banner builds this for you with geotargeted templates and automatic script blocking. For a platform-specific walkthrough, see cookie consent on WordPress.
