It’s been a while since we’ve written about the ever progressing cookiepocalypse, as companies continue to build stronger privacy features to prevent unwanted ad tracking.
The newest hammer to drop is iOS 17 removing tracking parameters while in Safari’s private browsing mode (Chrome’s Incognito mode). Safari has significant market share at 24.36% in 2023 of browser usage, so while most users are unlikely to use this feature, it’s still a significant change that will create leakage for older tracking solutions.
Announcements like this typically bring worry that the end of advertising is near. Fortunately, Everflow is here to overcome these challenges by tracking the right way and keeping up with the times.
What does this mean for Everflow customers?
Based on the current announcements, privacy browsing removes all personal identifiers including transaction IDs, but doesn’t remove additional parameters like campaign IDs.
We already offer clickless tracking at scale, which doesn’t require transaction IDs or personal identifiers to track users. As long as we’re receiving the offer ID (OID) and the partner ID (AFFID), we’re able to start the tracking process without using a transaction ID.
What is a Transaction ID? AKA Click ID, this is a unique number that is generated on every click and used for tracking activities back to the original click source by returning that number.
This means that even users with privacy browsing in Safari will still be tracked even if they remove our transaction ID, because we use the OID and AFFID instead.
How should customers set up their tracking?
We highly recommend placing our JavaScript SDK on your website with Direct Linking enabled as your tracking method. This is our default tracking method and it won’t be affected by this change.
The JavaScript SDK starts the tracking process when users reach your website and uses first-party cookies that are fully compliant with all of the privacy changes (notably Chrome will also start blocking third-party cookies in 2024.) This method allows you to track every marketing channel, including organic traffic and paid media channels, and have reliable accurate attribution for all of these channels. Once implemented, you can utilize your attribution data by passing conversions and events to Google Ads, Facebook, and TikTok for both your own campaigns and your affiliate’s campaigns.
Implementing our SDK is the best way to ensure that you’re fully compliant with all of the current privacy requirements, getting the reliable attribution that you deserve, and the peace of mind that comes with both.
If you have any questions about these IOS 17 changes, our JavaScript SDK, or any other growth challenges, please reach out to us at support@everflow.io
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