What Apple’s ITP 2.1 means for your marketing
3 areas affected and their consequences for advertisers
If your business is working with Facebook Ads, Google Ads, Adobe Analytics — in short, SoMe advertising, paid search and analytics platforms, chances are you’ve already heard about Apple’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention 2.1. You’re probably also wondering if all the stir caused by this anti-tracking update for Safari is affecting you at all. Here are 3 marketing areas to consider.
Takeaways
- ITP 2.1 in a nutshell
- 3 areas affected by ITP 2.1 and their platforms
- How to keep your first-party cookies alive
What is Apple’s ITP 2.1?
ITP 2.1 is Apple’s first 2019 intelligent tracking prevention update affecting its browser Safari. It’s been recently followed by another iteration called ITP 2.2 that will cause even more restrictions for marketers, as soon as it is completely rolled out.
But first, let’s cover ITP 2.1:
In short, ITP 2.1 limits the ability of advertisers to track users across domains by capping the lifetime of all first-party cookies from Safari to 7 days instead of the possible 2 years. In practice, if a significant number of your website visitors are coming from Safari and your conversion cycle takes more than 7 days, your marketing is impacted by ITP 2.1.
3 key areas affected by ITP 2.1
1. Website visitors:
Platforms:
Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, IBM Watson Analytics, etc.
What happens:
A returning user that you have targeted through your visits your website again after a period longer than seven days. After ITP 2.1, it will be regarded as a new user with an unknown history. This results in inflated website visitors figures in your analytics, which, in turn, makes it difficult to know how much real traffic are your campaigns generating in the long run.
2. Personalization
Platforms:
All marketing platforms used for personalization
What happens:
A reduced cookie lifetime means less historical user data for marketers. With less relevant data at hand, customer journeys become fragmented and incomplete. This makes personalization difficult: since marketers do not know their real audiences as good as they used to, they are unable to provide the same level of personalization through tailored content and online experiences.
3. Attribution
Platforms:
Analytics platforms
What happens:
With a cookie lifetime now decreased to seven days, it is no longer possible to track conversions beyond the user’s last website visit. In turn, attribution models become broken due to inaccurate data.
