iOS17: How it Will Affect Digital Advertising
**This article was last updated July 13, 2023 and will be updated periodically as more information on iOS17 is released.**
If you’ve been in digital marketing for longer than a few months, you know how detrimental the privacy changes to Apple’s iOS14.5 operating system affected us in 2021. Now that iOS17 is (almost) here, and we know there are more privacy additions to the operating system, to be quite honest, we’re all a little worried. As of July 12, 2023, iOS17 is available to the public in beta testing and is expected to roll out to all Apple devices (iPhones X and newer) as an operating system update by mid-September 2023. (Right in time for Q4 - YAY!)
This conversation was originally had in the Foxwell Founders Ad Buying Membership, where 450+ advertisers from around the globe discuss real-time issues and updates daily. Interested in learning more? Check us out here.
The quick TL;DR of iOS17:
This update will most impact:
Email campaigns
SMS campaigns
Safari private browsing mode
Apple says that tracking links (i.e. UTMs) are going away, but, to clarify, this is ONLY for Safari private browsing (like incognito mode) for now – though we presume this will expand in the future
Click IDs (i.e. fbclid and gclid parameters) ARE getting stripped from what we’ve seen so far in beta testing
Attribution will still be possible with unique landing page URLs etc., but user match rates could suffer — but again, this is ONLY for Safari private browsing, email, and SMS campaigns.
This is likely just the next step of tracking privacy via Apple (and in the future, presumably other tech companies) in a long series that will make tracking and attribution more difficult
Huge shout out to Foxwell Founders member Brett Fish and TagHero for hosting and sharing with us an immensely insightful roundtable about iOS17 with some of the best tech experts in our industry. Watch their YouTube video here.
So, what does this mean for Meta, TikTok, Google ads, and email/SMS marketing?
Most social media users aren’t visiting Safari → Incognito Mode → Facebook/Instagram → Click on an ad to purchase, SO, this currently should not impact click attribution parameters from using the Facebook/Instagram/TikTok app.
Early information shared suggests that this is only removing people tracking user IDs, NOT campaign IDs (for now). Also, users are able to turn on the ability to strip parameters in regular browsing mode as an option, but this will be on by default in incognito/private browsing mode.
With platforms that will be affected like email marketing, SMS, etc., you will still be able to see the referring platform as a whole (i.e. X purchases came from Klaviyo on X date) via a platform like Google Analytics or another attribution tool, but you won’t be able to see any details about the campaign and content parameters from which the purchase originated from.
User matching is the biggest loss for marketers with this update. Ad platforms are using massive AI-powered algorithms and systems focused around user matching to be able to not only track data from ad platforms, but also to serve the user the most relevant ads for them specifically based on their interests and online activities. So, if all of a sudden all data given to these ad and marketing platforms is anonymized data, it may not affect the big picture of attribution as much (i.e. you know that X% of revenue came from Meta, X% from Google, X% from TikTok, X% from Klaviyo, and so on) as it will affect the ability to market to the right audiences.
Keep in mind that this will affect multiple aspects of advertising, such as lookalike audiences, manual bidding, auto bidding, optimization, dynamic creative testing, Advantage+ Shopping campaigns, A/B testing email subject lines, and so much more.
Assuming UTMs will go away for iOS17 and beyond users altogether eventually, there is a workaround to not needing UTMs:
Apple can strip the UTM parameters after the main URL, but won’t (and can’t) strip the URL itself. SO, once this happens, instead of using a UTM, we will likely need to create separate landing pages for each variant or placement where we would usually use a UTM and let it auto-populate the specific postID.
This is likely another reason to lean more into Shops (Meta Shops, TikTok Shops, etc.), as the data never leaves that platform and therefore doesn’t need a UTM or tracking at all (or even a landing page)
It’s wise to start to work on implementing changes to your accounts ASAP. We know with Apple and can very strongly assume that the removal of UTMs is coming some time in the future to all browsing modes, not just incognito mode. The sooner we start to adapt and find solutions, the better off we’ll be.
Back up — what exactly are link tracking parameters?
A string of letters and numbers automatically added to a URL to track a user’s behavior after the initial click. It acts as a cookie to match a user’s click with their activity on a specific site.
Examples:
Facebook: fbclid
Google: gclid
UTM parameters: can be added manually to any link for tracking purposes across multiple sites. A standard Facebook ads UTM looks something like: ?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign={{campaign.name}}&utm_term={{adset.name}}&utm_content={{ad.name}}&fbadid={{ad.id}}
Affiliate marketing partners (i.e. IR click ID): people who are given a specific code or link to share with their audience so that they can share a commission from purchases directly from their link
I’m interested - what exactly are the privacy updates to iOS17?
From Apple’s press release on iOS17 here:
Safari adds greater protection for Private Browsing, both from trackers as a user browses, and from people who might have access to a user’s device. Advanced tracking and fingerprinting protections go even further to help prevent websites from tracking or identifying a user’s device. Private Browsing now locks when not in use, allowing a user to keep tabs open even when stepping away from the device.
Privacy updates include the expansion of Communication Safety beyond Messages to help keep kids safe when sending and receiving content via AirDrop, Contact Posters, a FaceTime message, and when using the Photos picker to choose content to send. It also expands to cover video content in addition to still images. A new feature, Sensitive Content Warning, helps adult users avoid seeing unwanted nude images and videos. As with Communication Safety, all image and video processing for Sensitive Content Warning occurs on-device, so Apple does not get access to the content.
**This article was last updated July 13, 2023 and will be updated periodically as more information on iOS17 is released.**