Martech: Martech is Marketing Logo
  • Topics
    Transformation
    Operations
    Data
    Experience
    Performance
    Management
    Special Reports
    All Topics
  • Conference
  • Webinars
  • Intelligence Reports
  • White Papers
  • What is MarTech
    Mission
    Team
    Newsletter
    Search Engine Land
    Third Door Media

Processing...Please wait.

MarTech » Performance Marketing » Apple’s latest ITP updates: What marketers need to know

Apple’s latest ITP updates: What marketers need to know

Breaking down what the changes mean for marketers -- in plain English.

Ginny Marvin on December 13, 2019 at 10:21 am

Apple’s WebKit team is out with another update to Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) for Safari that targets potential tracking workarounds.

In a blog post titled “Preventing Tracking Prevention Tracking,” WebKit’s John Wilander laid out three updates to fight detection of “which content and website data is treated as capable of tracking” and “improve tracking prevention in general.”

First, some background on Safari, ITP and cookie blocking. Safari has long restricted entities from setting third-party cookies if they don’t already have first-party relationships with users. Then ITP came on the scene in 2017 to identify and limit cookies of any type that have the ability to track users across sites. This severely limits cookie pools for audience targeting, including retargeting campaigns. Furthermore, it limits analytics and attribution data from Safari, which means marketers lose visibility into how their campaigns are performing with typically high-value iOS users.

If you thought Safari and ITP’s previous iterations had pretty well done in third-party cookies, you’d be right, but there are more holes to plug. The updates below apply to Safari on iOS and iPadOS 13.3, Safari 13.0.3 on macOS Catalina, Mojave, and High Sierra.

Cross-site request referer headers

The change. “ITP now downgrades all cross-site request referrer headers to just the page’s origin. Previously, this was only done for cross-site requests to classified domains.”

What is a cross-site request header referrer? When a user loads a web page with embedded content from another domain, as in a tracking pixel, the request header referrer for the tracking domain will no longer contain the full web address of the host page, only the domain name. That used to be done only for sites classified as trackers.

What the change means. Of the updates, this is the one that will have analytics implications. If a user loads a page from one web site with assets embedded from another, Safari will strip out the URL details contained in the request referrer header.

This means analytics will only show the referring domain, not the referring page.

Example. A user loads a page with assets from https://images.example via https://store.example/baby/strollers/deluxe-stroller-navy-blue.html. In Safari, the referrer header value will not contain that entire URL path. It will only include the root domain https://store.example/.

In this case, analytics provided by https://images.example would only record https://store.example as the referrer and not the full referrer path of /baby/strollers/deluxe-stroller-navy-blue.html.

(More) third-party cookie blocking

The change. “ITP will now block all third-party requests from seeing their cookies, regardless of the classification status of the third-party domain, unless the first-party website has already received user interaction.”

What the change means. This is really aimed at preventing attackers from “seeing their cookies.” It is minor from a marketer’s perspective but further reinforces the need for first-party relationships with users. If you have widgets placed on other sites, it doesn’t matter what your domain classification is, you will need to have a prior first-party relationship with a user in order to see your cookies on those sites. This has been the case in most contexts already.

Example. A user clicks on a YouTube video embedded on a news site. If that user has not previously logged into or visited and accepted cookies at YouTube.com, YouTube will not be able to track engagement from that site.

If you’re not a heavily trafficked site like YouTube and count on tracking from widget embeds, you have little to no visibility into Safari users.

Storage Access API update

The change. “As of this ITP update, the Storage Access API takes Safari’s cookie policy into consideration when handling calls to document.hasStorageAccess().

Now a call to document.hasStorageAccess() may resolve with false for one of two reasons:

  1. Because ITP is blocking cookies and explicit storage access has not been granted.
  2. Because the domain doesn’t have cookies and thus the cookie policy is blocking cookies.”

What is the Storage Access API? This API enables third-party embedded content to gain access to storage that is typically only accessible in a first-party context. With the Storage Access API, embedded items can determine if they have access and request it from the browser’s user agent.

Typically browsers will not give third-party embedded resources access to the same set of cookies and site storage. And document.hasStorageAccess() indicates whether the document has access to its first-party storage.

What it means. This, too, is aimed at attackers and will have little marketing implication. Detlef Johnson, Search Engine Land’s resident technical SEO expert, explained it this way, “The Storage Access API change is about closing a gap of a false positive API response pertaining to the third-party cookie policy of a given website. For an example of another attack vector, an attacker could previously figure out if YouTube is classified by ITP as a tracker or not by making a malicious request and testing for side effects of whether cookies were sent or not.”

Why we care

It’s important to understand how Safari and ITP affect your ability to target and measure ad campaigns.

Apple is not an ad-driven business and has staked its branding on protecting user privacy. As ITP’s restrictions have evolved, advertisers have had to continue to adjust expectations as Safari becomes a bigger black hole. Publishers and third-party adtech firms have felt the pinch. A recent report by The Information (subscription required) found CPMs for Safari users have plummeted as a result of not being able to sell ads based on cookied browsing behavior, while CPMs for typically less-valuable Google Chrome users have ticked up.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


New on MarTech

    Marketing operations talent is suffering burnout and turnover

    Antitrust bill could force Google, Facebook and Amazon to shutter parts of their ad businesses

    Unveiling our first MarTech Intelligence Report on email marketing platforms

    How product analytics can unite marketing and product teams to boost customer lifetime value

    Create a B2B GTM strategy that buyers, execs and revenue teams love

About The Author

Ginny Marvin
Ginny Marvin was formerly Third Door Media’s Editor-in-Chief, running the day-to-day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin wrote about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, Marketing Land and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.

Related Topics

DataPerformance Marketing

Get the daily newsletter digital marketers rely on.

Processing...Please wait.

See terms.

ATTEND OUR EVENTS

June 7, 2022: Master Classes

September 28-29, 2022: Fall

Start Discovering Now: Spring

Learn More About Our MarTech Events

June 14-15, 2022: SMX Advanced (virtual)

November 14-15, 2022: SMX Next (virtual)

March 8-9, 2022: Master Classes (virtual)

Learn More About Our SMX Events

Webinars

Take a Crawl, Walk, Run Approach to Multi-Channel ABM

Content Comes First: Transform Your Operations With DAM

Dominate Your Competition with Google Auction Insights and Search Intelligence

See More Webinars

Intelligence Reports

Enterprise SEO Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Identity Resolution Platforms

Email Marketing Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Sales Enablement Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Digital Experience Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Call Analytics Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

See More Intelligence Reports

White Papers

Reputation Management For Healthcare Organizations

Unlock the App Marketing Potential of QR Codes

Realising the power of virtual events for demand generation

The Progressive Marketer’s Ultimate Events Strategy 2022 Worksheet

CMO Guide: How to Plan Smart and Pivot Fast

See More Whitepapers

Receive daily marketing news & analysis.

Processing...Please wait.

Topics

  • Transformation
  • Operations
  • Data
  • Experience
  • Performance
  • Management
  • All Topics
  • Home

Our Events

  • MarTech
  • Search Marketing Expo - SMX

About

  • What is MarTech
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Marketing Opportunities
  • Staff

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Newsletters
  • RSS

© 2022 Third Door Media, Inc. All rights reserved.