Safari 12 mainly restricts third-party cookies from domains it classes as trackers. Your site's own analytics cookie is left alone, but ad platforms will see fewer Safari conversions and smaller remarketing lists. Judge results by counted enquiries.

Out today

Apple released iOS 12 today, and Safari 12 with it. The new Safari is also out for Macs on the two previous versions of macOS, and it is built into macOS Mojave, due next week.

Among the changes is a stricter version of Intelligent Tracking Prevention, Apple's name for the way Safari limits companies following people from site to site.

When Apple announced it in June, the obvious casualties were share buttons and comment widgets. For most businesses the bigger question is measurement: the figures used to decide which advertising works.

Safari is the browser most iPhone owners use, and iPhones tend to update within weeks, so the change will soon reach a good part of most sites' phone visitors.

Two kinds of cookie

Every cookie is tied to one domain, and only that domain can read it back. That is what lets a site recognise the same browser on a later visit.

The cookies your own pages set are tied to your domain and called first-party. Universal Analytics keeps one there to tell a returning visitor from a new one.

Your pages may also load code from an ad network or a social platform, which sets cookies tied to its own domain instead. Those are third-party.

Because that company's code sits on thousands of sites, its cookie can pick out one browser on every one of them. Safari 12 is aimed at that kind, for domains it has classified as trackers.

What changes in Safari 12

The first is the one measurement notices. Last year's version gave a tracking domain a day of access after someone used its own site directly; that window has gone.

What it leaves alone

The cookie Universal Analytics sets belongs to your domain and is read only on your domain. Safari 12 does not touch it.

So visits, pages, sources and goals recorded on your site should look much as they did last week, Safari visitors included.

Your site is also unlikely to be classified as a tracker itself. Safari looks for domains whose code and cookies appear across many unrelated sites, which a local business site does not do.

Where the numbers move

Advertising is different, because ad platforms connect an ad to a later visit or sale using cookies of their own.

Remarketing, the ads that follow people who visited your site, depends on recognising those visitors elsewhere. Lists built that way will hold fewer Safari users.

Conversion reports that rely on a platform's own cookie will miss more Safari conversions, particularly people who saw an ad, did not click, and came back days later.

Some platforms have adapted. Google changed its ad and Analytics tags last year so that an ad click can be remembered in a cookie on the advertiser's own domain, and tags installed years ago may not do that.

Reading the figures sensibly

Expect the gap between what ad platforms report and what your own records show to widen. Fewer reported Safari conversions is not the same as fewer customers.

Add an annotation in Analytics for today, a dated note on the timeline, so anyone comparing months later knows when the change happened.

Check how much of your traffic uses Safari, in the browser report under Audience, then Technology. The larger that share, the more your ad reports will move.

A worked example

A meal prep delivery service in the Lower Mainland takes weekly orders through its website and advertises on Google and on a social platform, with remarketing on both.

In the spring the owner added up the orders each platform claimed for one month, and the total came to more than the orders the business had actually received.

The reason was mechanical. Each platform counts an order if the customer saw or clicked its ad within a set number of days, so a customer who met both ads was counted twice.

Safari's tracking limits, first introduced last year, pull the other way, hiding some orders from the platforms altogether. Today's version pulls harder.

So the business stopped relying on the platforms' tallies. Every ad link now carries campaign tags, the order confirmation page is a goal in Analytics, and the checkout asks new customers how they heard about the service.

The order system gives the real number each month, and the platforms' figures are read as rough signals beside it.

Count what you control

The figures that depend on nobody else's cookie are the ones a business keeps itself.

Campaign tags on ad, email and social links put the source in the address the visitor arrives on, and Analytics records it at that moment.

Calls, forms and orders can be counted where they arrive, and a how-did-you-hear question asked consistently fills gaps no tag can.

Questions for whoever runs your ads

Ask which tags are on your site, when they were last updated, and whether they store ad clicks on your own domain.

Ask how each platform reports conversions it cannot see, since some estimate them, and which figure you are being shown.

And agree what will count as success over the next three months: enquiries the business counted, not reach.

The counter-case

For many small businesses this release changes very little.

A business that does not advertise online, or does not use remarketing, will see its own analytics carry on much as before.

One whose visitors mostly use Windows computers and Android phones will see smaller shifts, since the change is in Safari only.

But anyone judging advertising by a platform's own figures should start counting enquiries directly, because those figures just became a little less complete.

This week

  1. Annotate today in Universal Analytics.
  2. Check the share of visitors using Safari.
  3. Tag every ad link with campaign tags.
  4. Set your confirmation page as a goal.
  5. Ask how your ad tags store clicks.
  6. Add a how-did-you-hear question to forms.
  7. Judge campaigns by counted enquiries.

Step four keeps the measurement in your own hands. A goal on the page that confirms an enquiry is recorded by your own Analytics, whatever happens to anybody else's cookies.

Which pages those tagged visits arrive on is covered in landing pages and what visitors see first.

Frequently asked questions

What did Safari 12 change?

It tightened Intelligent Tracking Prevention. Companies Safari classes as trackers lose access to their cookies on other sites at once, and embedded content must ask before using them.

Does Safari 12 affect Google Analytics?

Very little. The cookie Universal Analytics relies on is tied to your own domain, and Safari 12 does not restrict it, so visits and goals should look much as before.

Which advertising figures will change?

Remarketing lists will hold fewer Safari users, and conversion reports that rely on an ad platform's own cookie will miss more Safari conversions, especially from people who never clicked.

Do fewer reported conversions mean fewer customers?

Not necessarily. The platforms may simply see fewer of your Safari customers. Compare their reports with the enquiries and orders your business counts itself.

How do I measure ads reliably now?

Tag every ad link, set the confirmation page as a goal in Analytics, ask new customers how they heard about you, and judge campaigns by counted enquiries.

Will Safari treat my site as a tracker?

Unlikely. Safari looks for domains whose code and cookies appear across many unrelated sites. A local business site setting cookies on its own domain does not look like that.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

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