Apple’s upcoming privacy changes will have an effect on click tracking – influencing email, SMS, and digital marketing overall. 

Apple’s fall release of iOS 17 is expected around September 23, 2023 – and if history plays a part, we can expect to see a slow rollout of the updated operating system on phones for a few months before full adoption. 

And while we can all expect to see some fun and exciting new features with this latest update, such as Live Voicemail, the ability to leave a video FaceTime message if someone doesn’t answer a FaceTime call, and improved Autocorrect, iOS 17 will also include several privacy and security features that are set to impact marketers come the fall of 2023. The new feature impacting email marketers is the automatic removal of click-tracking parameters. 

Understanding Link Tracking Protection 

iOS 17 will be introducing Link Tracking Protection (LTP), currently in beta, which works by stripping various URL parameters in Safari and when opening links from native Apple Mail messages. This will work automatically in private mode and as an opt-in option when in default browsing mode. 

While a lot can change between beta testing and the fall consume launch of iOS 17, what we do know now from developer testing is that in almost all cases neither UTM parameters nor custom user ID parameters are being stripped. 

However, what we are seeing stripped from click-through URLs are selected user-level parameters. This means any URL-appended parameters that can be tied to a specific individual. For example, from Google (gclid), from Facebook (fbclid), from Hubspot (__hssc_hsenc__hstc), MailChimp campaigns (mc_eid), and others. 

To help further put this impact into perspective, Apple’s iMessage, Apple’s texting app accounts for 17% of the market in the United States and Safari is the second-most popular browser worldwide. Apple’s native mail app has the largest market share amongst email clients overall, so the impact LTP will have on marketers may pose some significant challenges. 

However, rest assured that as an OptiMail customer you’re in good hands for two reasons: 

1. Our expert deliverability services team has been proactive following the ongoing updates and changes of all providers, including those being made by Apple, for years and we continue to do so. Our team is privy to official announcements and insider discussions and has continual conversations with experts in the community so that we’re able to keep you, our customers, from being unprepared for these types of changes. Moreover, we run our own developer tests using provider-based beta tools so that we can confirm your messages and campaigns won’t be impacted or provide you with the necessary changes to alleviate any issues should there be an impact.
2. Much like Apple and all major ISPs and providers, we believe that the privacy of your customers is important. And the information shared and used for tracking is done in a way that it isn’t subjected to Apple’s URL stripping. Therefore, we’ve tested the parameters currently available from OptiMail and can confirm our UTM appended attributes, CIDs and custom SSL link tracking are all unaffected by the upcoming iOS 17 update. 

In summary, as of now, we can confirm that the click tracking and custom SSL click-tracking appended to the URLs of your CTAs in OptiMail-sent emails are safe and will still attribute opens, clicks, and conversions appropriately with Apple’s latest iOS 17 release. Moreover, if using OptiMail’s native URL appending UTM parameters, those too will remain intact with the updates to Apple’s latest security release this fall. However, we recommend checking with your 3rd party Facebook and display ad providers to confirm how user-specific link appending will impact reporting and link attribution since we are seeing Google and Facebook campaign parameters added to URLs being stripped when clicked through in Apple’s native platforms such as Safari, Messenger and Apple Mail.