WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
ITP (Intelligent Tracking Prevention) is Apple’s contribution to the industry shift toward protecting privacy outside of PII (Personal Identifiable Information). It applies to all Safari users.
ITP is designed to block tracking technology (cookies) from capturing user browsing data – which is then used for advertising remarketing purposes. Originally just blocking third party cookies, ITP’s latest iteration limits first party cookies to a one-day lifespan. That means you can track a user across the site for one day before you lose that identifying data. It’s like Groundhog Day except we don’t like it.
IS IT AVOIDABLE?
Since the announcement of ITP, publishers have been attempting to circumvent its rules. That in turn forces Apple to strengthen ITP further.
There are some possible workarounds; Google and Facebook are moving toward capturing email addresses and using single-sign on technology to tie conversions and user actions back to their own login info. Server-side tracking would also allow analytics to be collected without relying on the browser.
HOW SIGNIFICANT IS IT?
We haven’t seen a whole lot of impact, because even with ITP, we still get a 24-hour window to track website users. Our initial analyses have shown that ITP’s remarketing impact is pretty negligible, as most of user site visits occurred within the first day after ad exposure.
Additionally, not all users are on Safari, and not all Safari users are using the newest version of Safari.
WHAT IS NET CONVERSION DOING ABOUT IT?
We know the consumer is going to continue to have a lot of touchpoints. And we’ll continue to get in front of them at each touchpoint, or “micromoment,” to capture the engagement or conversion at that time. ITP has made it more difficult to string those micromoments together, so we’re partnering with ad platforms that have the ability to determine the user’s path to purchase through sign-on, like Google or Facebook.
It’s difficult to measure the impact of something like this, but you know us. We’re going to quantify it as much as we can. We will continue to use platforms where we see performance, and many times that is a component of tracking; without it, we cannot properly optimize campaigns or prove impact. We’ll continue to have the latest forms of tracking and pixel technology, utilizing user login information where applicable and measuring the effects of any changes.
As cookies burn to a crisp in the oven of digital marketing, Net Conversion will continue to use data science to help understand attribution. As deterministic attribution falters, probabilistic looks to fill in the gaps. By leveraging media impact on overall business performance with high granularity and a wide data set, we can start to mathematically stitch together the millions of intricacies of cause and effect. With Conversionomics aggregating disparate data sets and our advanced analytics team using data modeling, we can make intelligent and holistic media decisions without reliance on cookie technology.
