Safari is Apple’s proprietary web browser. It is the default browser for OS-X and IOS devices. With its recent update, Safari has forced marketers to adapt to its new feature called Intelligent Tracking Prevention. This new feature limits owners of websites’ ability to track their users across domains.
Effect of ITP to Marketers
Since ITP limits the tracking of users across domains by sectioning off cookies after 24 hours, the most affected user bracket are those that are using Google Adwords.
Fortunately, Google Analytics has quickly adapted to the recent change and made some adjustments of their own in order to continue reporting conversions accurately in Google Adwords. Google has created the _gac, which is a new of cookie to handle ITP. This cookie is used to store the details of ad clicks thereby allowing Google Analytics to still track conversions in AdWords. So as long as you’ve linked your Google AdWords to your Google Analytics, you won’t see any major changes in the conversion data being reported.
What Can Marketers Do To Adjust
Although Safari users are outnumbered by Chrome and Firefox by 1 to 4, that will still translate to millions of users around the world. That is why you can’t ignore this new change. Google Analytics’ adjustment of migrating from 3rd party cookies to 1st party cookies is the biggest change that ITP has caused for Google Analytics and AdWords users. However, Google’s adjustment is not a flawless solution since no one really knows how Safari’s ITP algorithm really works. If you are a marketer that works with a vendor, it is recommended that you ask them what steps they have undertaken to fix the issue of possibly getting a lower quality of data from Safari users and possibly hold off on any quick decisions for a couple of months more until the dust settles.
The main question though is how effective will the campaigns be now that remarketing to Safari users has been severely reduced.
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