Apple's recent release of iOS 17 brings with it significant privacy changes that affect various aspects of user tracking and data sharing. These changes, primarily related to parameters on click-through URLs, have implications for platforms like Facebook and Google. In this blog, we will explore the impact of iOS 17 on marketers and Rockerbox customers.
According to information released by Apple, iOS 17 introduces privacy enhancements that strip user identifying components from click-through URLs while preserving non-identifiable parts. This means that user-identifiable IDs, such as Facebook's fbclid and Google's gclid parameters, will be removed from the links when shared in Messages, Mail, and Safari Private Browsing.
The iOS 17 update includes specific tracking prevention measures that impact advertisers' ability to track and attribute ad interactions. Here's a summary of these updates:
As an advertiser, there are key actions you can take to navigate the evolving privacy landscape and adapt to iOS 17:
Taking a broader view, Rockerbox has always taken a more comprehensive approach to marketing measurement. This starts with Rockerbox offering a variety of approaches to marketing measurement including Media Mix Modeling (MMM), Multi-Touch-Attribution (MTA), marketing performance benchmarks, and facilitating geo testing via our data warehouse solution.
Specifically, Rockerbox’s multi-touch-attribution (MTA) offering uses identity resolution based on first-party data, and do not rely on third-party cookies or any user-level identifiers that are traditionally included in click-through parameters. Many of the channels that we measure have never relied on items that Apple has phased out (third-party cookies) or is phasing out now (platform-specific user identifiers on clicks). Furthemore, Rockerbox does not require customers to include any user specific querystring parameters on click through URLs.
Our measurements typically leverage post purchase surveys, promo codes, and first-party data (phone numbers, emails, addresses) directly from our customers. It's important to note that these are not shared across customers. Additionally, we have been using a probabilistic approach for measuring marketing on many channels, including linear TV, OTT/CTV, and views for Facebook, for several years. We have also formed partnerships with Snapchat, Reddit, Pinterest, and others to match based on first-party data.
The release of iOS 17 brings important privacy changes that impact user tracking and data sharing through click-through URLs. While these changes primarily affect platforms like Facebook and Google, Rockerbox and our customers remain largely unaffected. With a comprehensive approach to measurement and analytics, Rockerbox's reliance on first-party data, probabilistic methods, and non-user-level strategies ensures accurate marketing performance insights for our customers. As Apple's privacy landscape evolves, Rockerbox continues to provide robust measurement solutions for businesses seeking actionable marketing intelligence.
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