This week is Apple’s World Wide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) and there have been a few privacy announcements worth reviewing. In this post, we take a look at Link Tracking Protection (LTP) which will become available this fall across Apple’s ecosystem as part of their operating system updates.
What is Link Tracking Protection?
As explained in their press release:
Link Tracking Protection in Messages, Mail, and Safari Private Browsing
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/06/apple-announces-powerful-new-privacy-and-security-features/
Some websites add extra information to their URLs in order to track users across other websites. Now this information will be removed from the links users share in Messages and Mail, and the links will still work as expected. This information will also be removed from links in Safari Private Browsing.
The system will automatically identify user specific parameters in the URL, and remove them. You can see this with the example Apple used while discussing the feature in Safari.
Before LTP:
https://example.com/ad_engagement?click_id=YmVhODI1MmzMNGU&campaign_id=23 After LTP:
https://example.com/ad_engagement?campaign_id=23 What is the Impact of Link Tracking Protection?
Across the Web, as LTP is limited to Safari’s Private Browsing Mode, I feel the impact will be mitigated to some extent. Where brands likely need to focus is on the impact to Messages and Mail.
When Apple introduced Mail Tracking Protection back in 2021 the impact to email marketing was profound. Gone was the traditional metrics such as open rate, location and time used for campaign optimization. Yet, you could still track click through information. It’s this last bit that is about to get more difficult.
Advertising over email often includes user specific identifiers in the links back to the website(s) mentioned in the email. Apple is seeking to remove this user specific information from links clicked in the Apple Mail client which may result in impacts to not only attribution, but other integrations that relay on such information (such as how websites may apply promotions). If you’re currently building audiences or affinity models based on which users clicked through the email – those audiences will likely experience a sizable drop as people adopt the feature.
Apple Mail currently is around 58% of the market. When LTP is released this fall, this change is sure to be felt as we head into Q4 and see brands ramp up marketing for Christmas.
While I haven’t spoken much about iMessage and Instant Messaging on this blog – LTP is also coming to Messages, and so will impact marketing efforts there as well. Keep in mind that iMessage accounts for about 17% of the market in the United States.
What should you do?
This is a tricky question and has several moving parts. Let’s break it down to engineering and marketing.
Engineering
Engineering will need to determine the technical impact to existing platforms. How will the website / email platform, etc. function if these user parameters are not present? This may involve speaking with vendors about their respective platforms. It will be critical to ensure that systems work as expected prior to Black Friday.
Marketing
On the marketing side of things – consideration needs to be given to how reporting will work in the future. For attribution, Apple has been pushing Private Click Measurement. As attribution continues to become more difficult due to technical policy and regulation – perhaps it’s finally time to work with engineering to adopt more privacy focused attribution methods.
When Will this be released?
Traditionally, Apple updates it’s operating systems in the fall, in the late September / early October timeframe. If this holds true, this would leave brands with somewhere between three and four months to adjust their marketing efforts and attribution strategies prior to the Christmas rush.
However, do note that not everyone updates their operating systems right away – so impact will be small at first, but grow throughout Q4 as people update their phones (either with new phones running iOS17, or via updating their OS).
I would expect, based on historical trends, to see upwards of 90% adoption in the Apple ecosystem by the end of Q1.