Browser changes are here.
Be prepared to thrive.
Here’s what is happening
In early 2019, Safari rolled out an upgraded version of its Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP). Now, in Fall 2020, Apple released its yearly upgrades for iOS and iPadOS and released Safari 14.
This means that ITP now affects all browsers in Apple’s mobile Ecosystem, which makes tracking those visitors increasingly difficult. When you can’t identify visitors, you can’t optimize marketing spend, utilize personalization, or get representative A/B testing insights.
Additionally, Safari 14—via its new Privacy Reporting feature—now makes publicly visible what trackers are on the webpages. Historically, companies have erred on the side of tracking everything, but this change means that sites will need a much more strategic plan for what to track, in order to best serve customers and to keep concerned customers from opting out.
And more browser changes are forthcoming.
What’s the impact?
Traditionally, cookies—small text files that a web browser sets on a user’s computer—have persisted for years and have allowed sites to remember that they have seen a particular browser/device combination before.
Using cookies as a proxy for unique users, technology has been developed to facilitate concepts such as campaign tracking, return on media spend, personalized ad targeting, and remarketing.
Safari’s changes dramatically lower the lifespan of these files—in some cases, reducing storage time from two years to as little as 24 hours—when they are set in ways that are common to advertising technology. Lacking identifiers, any existing user could be classified as ‘new’ upon a return visit, and any previous history might be lost.
Audience segmentation becomes inaccurate
Customer journey mapping is limited
Ad spend changes due to broken attribution models
Content and campign performance data is unreliable
Personalization becomes difficult
Technical functionality can break or stop working
Data may cease being collected entirely
Loss of effectiveness in marketing tactics, such as remarketing
Losing tags and cookies doesn’t just affect your data, it impacts your entire business. Search Discovery can make your cookies last longer, improve your marketing investments, and help you deliver better customer experiences.
UNDERSTANDING THE URGENCY
How we can help
IDENTIFY IMPACT
FREE AUDITS
Here’s how they work:
- You provide us with a URL that you want scanned for browser change impacts on tracking.
- We provide you with a report detailing technical challenges by browser and identification of affected cookies/external domains.
- We will also provide high level suggestions for next steps.
VENDOR SOLUTIONS
It’s our business to remain adaptable to the ever-changing browsing landscape, so you don’t have to stress about it. We work within a company’s existing tag infrastructure to identify problem areas for analysis, optimization, and advertising, and we work with you to mitigate or solve found issues. We execute efficiently and effectively to help you implement existing platform solutions, including:
- Google Server Side: Current available solution in Beta for GTM customers to shift data server side.
- Tealium EventStream: Current available solution which can allow many tags blocked by browsers to fire server side.
- Adobe: Currently does not have a solution in place but expected to roll out by end of year.
OTHER SOLUTIONS
An additional option to fill in the information gap created by the browser updates is through a data science integration and attribution modeling. Companies can work with the data they have to create attribution models to fill in the gaps created by the browser updates. Understanding the business goals will help to determine if data science is a good fit. Focus on decoupling reliance on cookies to support existing business functionality in a new way.
STAY UP TO DATE
Browser Blogs /
Developer Notes
Covering current, planned, and future changes.
Browser Change Aggregation Page
Aggregate news about the impact of browser changes on analytics.
Personal Blogs
Search Discovery Blog
Can Digital Marketing Survive New Browser Privacy Changes?
We discuss recent browser privacy updates and their expected impacts on the marketing world. See how we can help you navigate privacy changes!
The New Reality – Data Collection in iOS14
We review the recent changes Apple has made with the iOS14 update and its effect on data collection and mobile measurement. Read more to understand these critical updates and your next steps.
Sign up for a free audit to understand the impact these browser changes have on your data!
What you will receive:
- A report detailing technical challenges by browser and identification of affected cookies/external domains.
- High level suggestions for next steps.
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