Apple’s most recent developments see the latest iteration of Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) pushed in to the beta versions of their software. The release was announced on webkit.org and details the full changes in ITP 2.1. No indication has been given on a release date.
The main change Apple has introduced is a restriction on first-party cookies, limiting their lifespan to a maximum of seven days. Apple cites that these changes are driven by privacy, security and performance.
Awin is carrying out an impact analysis of these changes. It is known most Safari sales convert within seven days so we expect the effect to be minimal. Nevertheless, it’s clear first-party cookie tracking alone will be insufficient in ensuring the affiliate channel is fully protected from ITP. The ITP compensation tool will help ensure publishers are not left out of pocket as a result of this, but further updates to tracking will be required to mitigate the full impact.
It has been clear for some time Safari would continue to tighten control over cookies. Having anticipated this, Awin has been actively working with advertisers to adopt our server-to-server tracking solution. In addition, Awin has integrated directly with advertisers’ APIs to speed up server-to-server integrations whenever possible. As Awin’s infrastructure allows easy connection with advertisers’ technology, the plan is to develop this further.
Finally, realizing that 25% of our advertiser base is using five e-commerce platforms, we’re developing server-to-server plugins to ensure faster adoption, helping to make tracking even more robust alongside the Awin MasterTag.
Awin will continue to keep you informed as more information becomes available and we conduct a full assessment of how this will affect both advertisers and publishers.
