What's Happened
It’s no secret that over the past few years, Apple has staked its claim as the leader in consumer privacy protections. Yet with iOS 17 on the horizon, they're poised to increase that lead by leaps & bounds. Expected to hit the public in the coming weeks (mid-September 2023), iOS 17 is coming with yet another set of sweeping changes that will send marketers scrambling. This time however, the target will be an age-old tool for monitoring traffic attribution: URL Parameters & UTMS.
UTMs have been around since the early 2000s and are vital to the practice of affiliate marketing. The predecessor to Google Analytics, Urchin Software launched the Urchin Tracking Module (sometimes also referred to as a Traffic Monitor) as a way of accurately allowing systems to know exactly where a user clicked a link from. UTM parameters are simply snippets of text added to the end of a URL which define the specific aspects of the campaign from which it originated.
Apple’s launch of iOS 17 intends to highly disrupt most user identifiable information attached to URLs with its introduction of Link Tracking Protection (LTP). Once implemented, this new feature will eliminate most URL parameters from links shared via Apple Mail, iMessage, as during most Safari entry points. As-in, when a user transitions into a Safari browsing experience from an external link click. Falling in line with the strategy behind their Ad Tracking Transparency (ATT) feature brought forth in iOS 14, the assumption that this is likely the first of many moves by Apple to chip away at link traffic monitoring practices is not without merit. And for affiliate marketers, the implications could not be any more dire.
These days, UTMs are often used to prop up the entire affiliate marketing framework as we know it: from attributing sales to creators, to attributing sales to platforms, to even auto-applying a discount code during a checkout process.
As Discussed in Limited Supply
In a recent episode of the Limited Supply podcast, hosts Nik Sharma and Moiz Ali discussed how Apple’s upcoming changes to UTMs will continue to make eCommerce significantly more and more difficult. Essentially, if a brand or influencer sends out an affiliate link to a mass audience, there will now be no way of tracking who specifically, if anyone, actually used that link.
In an example discussed on the episode, they mentioned how if perhaps you decided to email 100,000 people a singular link for a beauty product or supplement. Well now, when they click that link, all UTM parameters disappear and so any information you may have previously been able to gather about that campaign’s effectiveness would be lost. Rather, one would now have to individually cater specific links for each user, such as with single-use discount code coupons, which in that case would effectively end the auto-apply-at-checkout system most consumers have grown accustomed to.
Moving outside just the realm of affiliate links, cookies (the close cousin to UTMs) were floated as a potential solution for at least when it comes to web advertising. However, as Apple’s agenda forges further and further down the privacy path and UTMs sit on life-support, it’s more likely than not that cookies could be next up on the chopping block.
Transparency and visibility is what’s at stake here for advertisers and affiliate marketers. User privacy is important, but many small businesses and service providers heavily rely on these parameters when evaluating their marketing strategies and allocating advertising budgets. If you can’t show proof of efficacy with regard to marketing campaigns, you’re simply throwing your money into the wind.
Back in June when Apple first announced iOS 17, Marketing Dive forecasted that according to industry experts, only time will tell when it comes to the full implications of LTP, but any further tightening of consumer privacy will undoubtedly impact business. Furthermore, marketers should be reviewing their current processes and start re-strategizing with an open mind. As such, at the outset of any new problem is the possibility for new solutions.
Here’s 5 ideas for what to do when you start to notice the impact:
1. Use unique short-links
Use them to transfer a user into safari from their mobile device, then apply more parameters on the redirect. Any short link tools should do just fine here.
2. Use unique landing pages
Wherever it's appropriate & makes sense, rely more on sending a user to a dedicated landing page, even if it happens to more or less be a dupe of your homepage.
3. Enable affiliates to sell on their own domains or shops
Allow affiliates or creators to sell from their own shops, or websites, so that attribution can be assigned from their source destination.
4. Use post-purchase surveys to fill in attribution holes
Use a tools like KnoCommerce, to better understand where a customer purchased from, in the event that their UTMs fell off from a marketing campaign.
5. Remove discounting functionality from affiliate links
Do not rely on UTMs for purchasing functionality such as auto applying discount codes. Instead look into using Shopify Functions, or use tools like CreatorCommerce to help affiliates apply discounts automatically.
There is a referendum on internet privacy boiling beneath the surface of the web advertising and affiliate marketing today. The future will have no shortage of further privacy changes, and the affiliate world will need to think critically about the systems that make it all possible. It's more likely than ever that Creator-to-Consumer selling strategies will emerge as a new foundation for how to conduct future-proof affiliate campaigns without compromising traceability & attribution.
If your business is looking to take immediate steps to solidify the future for your affiliate business, you can work with the team at CreatorCommerce – who’s helping brands issue affiliates their own dedicated shop URLs, which work independently of UTMs or Cookies, while also building the additional tools necessary to power the future of Creator-to-Consumer.
