iOS 17 - what is it and what do I need to do?

Insights Article

TL;DR

iOS 17 launched to the public in mid-September, but will be widely adopted by Q1 in 2024.
It features Apple’s link-tracking protection feature. This will make it more of a challenge to track iOS users across platforms, especially through second and third-party data.
The link-tracking protection on this update is particularly covering email marketing, and users that browse through incognito safari tabs. For paid media marketers like myself, this is a minute pool of our users. The same cannot be said for some email marketing methods.
To minimise the damage these updates do, you should be working with “customer-first” data: a combo of zero and first-party.
Consumer privacy is something we can all get behind, even marketers.
These updates are not going anywhere, and are only going to get tighter on this subject.
Adopt a first-party data strategy to deal with these updates.

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What is iOS 17?

iOS 17 was announced in June, and dropped for iPhones in September ‘23. The expectation is that this will be largely downloaded by iPhone users by Q1 2024.

Along with the usual new apps and customisation, there's one standout feature - Link Tracking Protection. This auto-removes user tracking IDs from URLs when you browse privately in Safari or use Mail and Messages.

Here's how Apple explained it:

“Some websites add extra information to their URLs in order to track users across other websites. Now this information will be removed from the links users share in Messages and Mail, and the links will still work as expected. This information will also be removed from links in Safari Private Browsing.”

So in summary: iOS 17 scrubs identifiable tracking info from your URLs to stop you being followed across the internet without your permission. It's all about protecting privacy while browsing, which I think we can all get behind.

How iOS 17 Impacts Marketing

While bringing privacy benefits, iOS 17 makes life tougher for us marketers. Tracking users and measuring campaign performance just got harder.

Here's the deal:

No More Click IDs

With Link Tracking Protection on via Safari private browsing, Mail, or Messaging, their device scans URLs and removes any tracking parameters.

The most common (and useful to marketers) IDs like fbclid, gclid, and adid are stripped, based on Apple's list of known trackers. Many more parameters can also be removed.

When clicking a link, Safari checks the URL. If trackers are detected, they are stripped before the user reaches the site.

Masking the Customer Journey

Without click IDs, we have to use different ways to track users across sites and channels. Otherwise, it’s difficult to understand the user’s journey between, say, an email, and other platforms.

Targets get less effective, conversions get misattributed, budgets get wasted. Suddenly Return on Investment (ROI) tanks and user experience suffers without accurate data.

But with all that said, privacy is important, and we can adapt. New attribution models and strategies can step up to fill the gaps. It just means your strategy needs rethinking if this harms your current setup.

Adapting Marketing Strategies for iOS 17

Before panicking about the impacts of iOS 17, keep in mind that source, medium and campaign parameters in URLs remain unaffected. Marketers can continue measuring overall campaign effectiveness in Safari, whether in private mode or not.

Link Tracking Protection is only active in Safari's Private Browsing mode, used by an estimated 20% of users currently. But the increasing privacy focus requires rethinking data practices.

Consider Apple's Private Click Measurement (PCM) solution

Private Click Management (PCM) is a privacy-focused approach for evaluating digital advertising campaigns. It safeguards user privacy by shielding their personal information while still providing advertisers with essential insights into ad performance.

PCM operates by assigning a unique, randomised identifier to each ad click, enabling advertisers to track whether that click led to a desired action, such as a purchase or sign-up. This identifier is solely used for this purpose and is not associated with any personally identifiable information about the user.

However, some argue PCM is a poor compromise between privacy and ad effectiveness.

Have confidence with first-party data

First-party data is data that you collect directly from your customers, such as their email addresses, purchase history, or browsing behaviour. It's the most valuable type of data because it's yours to own and control.

By collecting and using first-party data, you can continue to measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and retarget users who are most likely to be interested in your products or services.

A common way of using first-party data in paid social advertising is through Meta’s custom audiences. For example, using a collection of emails from your mailing list as a custom audience is possible through Meta to add another touchpoint to this group through Meta ad placements.

Wrapping up

iOS 17 is only going to seriously impact a select few campaigns out there. The update adds this Link Tracking Protection only for private Safari browsing, through the Mail app, and through Message campaigns specifically to these devices. Where your activity goes through other apps, your campaign avoids this update anyway.

Not to mention Android users, desktop users, and of course, the people who hate updating their phones. Eventually, their hand will be forced by our Apple overlords, but until then, these touchpoints are unaffected.

So whilst there’s no reason to panic, be sure to observe how your data may have changed between Q3 and Q4 to see where device performance may have been impacted.