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iOS 11 will accelerate the need for cookie-less tracking

With the soon-to-be-released iOS 11 mobile operating system, Apple is looking to kill the cookie. Contributor Joe Sabol says advertisers need to face the new mobile reality and devise a post-cookie ad strategy.

Joe Sabol on September 15, 2017 at 3:28 pm

Apple’s new iPhone 8 is out in the wild, but the most significant impact for marketers came months earlier with the unveiling of iOS 11 at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).

With iOS 11, which will be released to the masses next week, Apple announced it will accelerate its long-held policy of elbowing the cookie into obsolescence.

In essence, the changes brought on by iOS 11 seek to constrain the use of cookies so that they can be used to log in to sites people visit most, but the use of cookies to track users across sites will be limited or eliminated.

The near-term effects are not hard to predict. The software updates to Safari, which accounts for roughly a third of all mobile browser traffic, will skew immediately to the advantage of the predominant ad-based web properties, namely Facebook and Google, which users visit often. That will create a serious disadvantage for the rest of the publishing ecosystem, which still relies heavily on third-party cookies to track and place advertisements.

But the macro trend at work here is impossible to miss: Apple is trying to kill the cookie. And they likely will succeed.

It’s not a question of if, but when.

[Read the full article on MarTech Today.]

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Joe Sabol

Joe Sabol oversees Flashtalking’s Sales and Account Management teams in the US. As one of the original Co-founders of Flashtalking US operations, Joe has been instrumental in growing the business from three people to over 200 across six offices across North America. Prior to Flashtalking, Joe held several senior roles at Pointroll overseeing National Sales, Account Management, and Publisher Sales. Joe has over 20+ years of digital experience ranging from Search to Mobile to Rich Media. Sabol resides in NJ with his wife and 3 young sons where he coaches high school wrestlers and prepares his sons for the 2032 Olympics and UFC 420.