Cookies and ITP 2.0

In 2017 Apple caused a stir in the digital marketing world by making an update to Safari browser that put a 24-hour time limit on third-party cookies.

It drew ire and a strongly-worded letter from advertising industry groups (the ANA, the 4A’s, the IAB, etc) encouraging Apple to “rethink its plan”. 

どうして？

The advertisers argued that the internet marketing industry relies on consistent and generally applicable standards for cookies so that companies can innovate, and build personalized web content and services.

To them, Apple’s addition of Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) was unilaterally shifting the rules and “sabotaging the economic model for the internet”. 

It got better this summer with the release of IPT 2.0, which puts a “0 days” limit on third-party cookies. 

The graphic above, from Apple’s browser engine site for developers WebKit, explains the new version of ITP. 

Although Safari handles only ~20% of web traffic, it is still a major issue for marketers because Apple’s customers are the upper market.

Apple customers pay more for devices. They spend more in app stores. They buy more paid digital content. They have higher AOVs when they shop online.  You get the idea.

So for the past few years, in nearly all discussions of mobile marketing, the topic of iOS device’s "not accepting cookies" comes up.

This is generally true but specifically wrong, because it is the browser that doesn’t accept cookies (on both macOS and iOS) not the OS itself, and there are other browsers that are available on iOS devices (such as Chrome). 

The next topic that comes up in those same conversations are “privacy friendly” identity solutions that try to reduce audience fragmentation caused by multiple-device ownership, browsers that block third-party cookies, etc.

The general term for how these work is called “device graphing”. More about that some other time.

見て　下さい！

https://www.adweek.com/digital/every-major-advertising-group-is-blasting-apple-for-blocking-cookies-in-the-safari-browser/

https://webkit.org/blog/8311/intelligent-tracking-prevention-2-0/

https://www.parrable.com/landing.html