A migration story told from the inside — the signals we saw, what we changed, and what the first hours showed. Resulting in over 23 % more personalized ad inventory.
Background
Flightradar24 is the world’s most popular flight-tracking service, serving over 100 million monthly visitors in 230+ countries. The platform runs programmatic advertising alongside a premium subscription tier, with a globally distributed audience spanning EEA countries subject to TCF, US states with varying privacy requirements, and a large non-regulated international base.
Consent management sits directly in the critical path for their ad revenue. The EEA audience determines how much inventory qualifies for personalized advertising. The US audience determines how much friction visitors experience. Both matter commercially.
What we were asked to do
In early 2026, Flightradar24 asked Gravito to assess its consent setup and take over its management. The brief was straightforward: make it work better.
The existing setup was built on industry-standard frameworks. It was certified, had been running for an extended period, and was compliant. The question was whether it was performing.
This is a question most publishers have not asked — not because they are not curious, but because most CMPs do not provide the visibility needed to answer it.
What we found
When we looked at the full picture — the ad request layer, the serving restriction breakdown in GAM, the territory-handling logic, and the signal output — three things stood out.
The banner UX was leaving consent on the table
Consent rates vary significantly across CMP implementations, even among certified solutions. The difference is not always visible in the CMP dashboard. It becomes clear when you look at how many impressions are served as limited ads versus fully consented inventory — and compare that to what the audience profile would suggest is achievable.
US traffic was being handled as a single territory
The previous setup used a uniform consent approach across all US traffic, regardless of state-level privacy requirements. Users in states with no applicable consent requirement were shown a banner they had no legal obligation to view. This is not a compliance failure — it is a precision gap. It adds friction, reduces engagement, and creates consent obligations that did not need to exist.
Privacy signals were not reaching the ad stack in full
A review of the live ad request output revealed that US state privacy signals — required under applicable state frameworks — were not transmitted correctly to downstream demand partners. This issue was invisible in the CMP interface and had not been flagged by any monitoring.
What we changed: Flightradar24 case study
We migrated Flightradar24 to Gravito in April 2026. The configuration directly addressed all three findings.
Banner performance and returning visitor recognition
Improved through a combination of UX refinement and first-party persistence infrastructure. Returning visitors are now recognized, and their existing consent state is applied immediately, without re-prompting — regardless of which browser they are using.
Territory handling was rebuilt at the state level
Gravito’s orchestration layer geolocates each visitor and automatically maps them to the correct framework. TCF fires for EEA traffic. GPP fires at the appropriate state level for applicable US traffic. When no banner is legally required, none is shown — but GCMv2 signals still fire correctly to the entire downstream stack. No additional configuration is required in each tool.
Signal output corrected and extended
US state privacy signals now transmit correctly to all demand partners across all applicable states. The ad request output is clean, complete, and verifiable from day one.
What the first hours showed
We checked the data the same day. The consent rate was already up 16 percentage points. US state signals were appearing in ad requests correctly for the first time. The banner was showing only where required. These are the first hours, not the final results. But the direction was clear.
The gap between a compliant CMP and a performing CMP is measurable. In most cases it has been sitting there, quietly, since the CMP was first deployed.
What this tells us about consent management more broadly
Flightradar24 is not an outlier. The combination of factors we found there — a consent rate below its potential, blunt territory handling, and signal gaps in the ad request layer — is something we see regularly. This is common because most CMPs do not surface this information clearly, and most publishers lack the ad request expertise to look for it themselves.
We find it. We fix it. That is the service.
If you want us to look at yours
We conduct a brief technical review of any publisher’s current consent setup. We examine the ad request layer, territory handling, signal output, and returning visitor behavior. We tell you what we find.
No commitment required. Request a meeting with us!
