Earlier this year, Apple announced their next iteration of Safari’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) “which places restrictions on cookies based on how frequently a user interacts with the website that dropped them.” This update is important for the Affiliate Marketing community because it could negatively impact the ability to track the customer journey and resulting transactions.
With ITP 2.0, Apple will remove the previously introduced 24-hour window for which a pixel in a third-party context can access cookies. This means cookies we drop won’t be accessible by our tracking pixel on a Merchant’s website. Additionally, existing cookies will be purged after 30 days. Apple will be stricter about passing HTTP referrer information. If there are redirects before our click domain, we’ll only see the last redirect as the referrer instead of the Affiliate’s site.
While it is difficult to know the exact date of the Safari 12 release, we are preparing for a September roll out which would coincide with other historical updates.
Our technology team has a solution to protect our clients from these changes which will require Merchants to update their ShareASale tracking pixel. Fear not, our dedicated Client Success team has written easy-to-follow directions to help our retailers easily implement this new tracking integration.
What can you do?
Take action. Although this is an impactful change, we have a solution. In order to avoid any tracking issues, get a head start by reaching out to our Client Success team to utilize our latest tracking package. By implementing our updated tracking today, you can ensure that there will be no break in your Affiliate channel tracking.
Seize the day. This is a great opportunity for our Merchants to ensure that they have the most up-to-date tracking technology that we offer. With this upgrade, brands can confidently move forward with the knowledge that their Affiliate channel is ready to continue growing their brand.
