Apple is removing tracking parameters from shared URLs. Starting with iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma, which launched in September, Apple will block data from links that get shared in Messages, Mail, and Safari Private Browsing. The move is part of a whole suite of privacy tools, which includes photo permissions, communication safety, sensitive information warnings, and more. For Apple users, most of these tools will be welcome. For marketers, the change is causing some consternation.

What’s a Tracking Parameter?

If you aren’t a marketer or an IT professional, you may never have paid attention to URL tracking parameters. They are pieces of code embedded in URLs that can help marketers learn information about who is sharing and clicking links. For example, consider Urchin Tracking Modules, or UTMs. They are standard tracking parameters. Google Analytics supports them by default because so many people rely on them for information. Here are some examples of UTMs:

utm_campign can identify a specific marketing campaign.
utm_content is used to A/B test differences in content.
utm_source can identify the source of the traffic.
utm_medum can identify the type of traffic, such as search or an ad.

A “clean” URL will look something like this:

h ttps://www.kuration.com/article/9-reasons-wed-pay-to-watch-a-musk-vs-zuckerberg-fight/

If we added some UTM parameters to our website to track a marketing campaign with a text link on Facebook, it might look something like this:

h ttps://www.kuration.com/article/9-reasons-wed-pay-to-watch-a-musk-vs-zuckerberg-fight/?utm_content=textlink&utm_source=facebook

As you can see, marketers can use tracking parameters to track all kinds of things, including whether different pictures make a link more enticing, which headline to use, which social media site traffic is coming from, the success rate of email marketing over time, and so much more. Tracking parameters are an essential tool for analytics and a key measurement of success.

What’s Affected?

As we mentioned, Apple is removing tracking parameters from links in Mail, Messages, and Safari Private Browsing. iPhones have a majority market share in Canada, with 57% of the entire market, so you can bet most of those people are using Mail and Messages. Many use Safari, making it the second most used browser in Canada, at 31%. It’s a bit of a marketing rule of thumb that 20% of internet users are using private browsing by default. That piece of wisdom traces back to a 2017 paper by DuckDuckGo. Apple isn’t saying how many users are using private browsing, but we would not be surprised if it’s actually more than 20%. It’s very easy to use Safari Private Browsing by default on an iPhone, and Apple promotes using Safari that way.

What Tracking Parameters Will Be Blocked?

Thanks to some reporting by Jeff Johnson and some testing by knak, we know that Apple will be using a static list of trackers and we know what they are. Take a look:

Parameter                          PrivacyTests.org Description
__hsfp                                     HubSpot tracking parameter
__hssc                                     HubSpot tracking parameter
__hstc                                     HubSpot tracking parameter
__s                                           Drip.com email address tracking parameter
_hsenc                                     HubSpot tracking parameter
_openstat                                Yandex tracking parameter
dclid                                          DoubleClick Click ID (Google)
fbclid                                        Facebook Click Identifier
gclid                                          Google Click Identifier
hsCtaTracking                         HubSpot tracking parameter
mc_eid                                      Mailchimp Email ID (email recipient’s address)
mkt_tok                                    Adobe Marketo tracking parameter
ml_subscriber                         MailerLite email tracking
ml_subscriber_hash              MailerLite email tracking
msclkid                                      Microsoft Click ID
oly_anon_id                             Omeda marketing ‘anonymous’ customer id
oly_enc_id                               Omeda marketing ‘known’ customer id
rb_clickid                                 Unknown high-entropy tracking parameter
s_cid                                         Adobe SiteCatalyst tracking parameter
vero_conv                                Vero tracking parameter
vero_id                                     Vero tracking parameter
wickedid                                   Wicked Reports e-commerce tracking
yclid                                           Yandex Click ID

Notice that this list is full of tracking parameters used by popular marketing platforms. If you launch paid media campaigns, chances are these are the platforms you use. Clearly, paid media campaigns will be deeply affected by this decision. If your audience is using Apple, and roughly half of mobile users are, then you will be missing out on those analytics.

So What Now?

It’s important to note that not all is lost in terms of analytics. There are other ways to measure traffic and customer behaviour besides tracking parameters. Apple, for it’s part, wants marketers to rely on Private Click Management (PCM), a technology that promises to measure conversions without compromising user privacy. However, there are criticisms of that tool’s usefulness.

Where does that leave us? Well, marketing to Apple customers has become more difficult to measure. It is unknown whether other companies will follow suit, but there is a real possibility they might. Finally, whether or not tools such as PCM will improve remains to be seen.