The Only Optimization Platform Not Affected by Safari ITP

What is Safari ITP?

Safari Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) is Apple’s initiative to increase customer privacy and improve the customer experience by eliminating JavaScript tags used for cross-site tracking — and that can lead to slow load times. Essentially, Safari wants to limit marketers’ ability to track users with JavaScript cookies.

For many JavaScript based solutions, including tag management and optimization solutions, ITP is a major problem. Since it prevents tracking user behavior over time, every JavaScript based solution will lose visibility into the identifier used to track each user and user behavior. They won’t know what site experience a returning user has had, if and when they left the site, or if they converted. This will severely limit the ability to offer a consistent experience in both optimization and personalization campaigns. Further, any data collected with a tag-based tool will be unreliable because every user will reappear as new after the set time frame. Luckily, SiteSpect does not rely on JavaScript to set user cookies.

Why isn’t this a problem for SiteSpect customers?

SiteSpect sits in the flow of traffic. To a browser like Safari, SiteSpect looks like your web server. Since SiteSpect sets cookies and values in the flow of traffic and not in the browser by JavaScript, ITP does not affect the user experience. This means SiteSpect customers can keep track of users and offer personalized experiences beyond the narrow ITP window. This also means that SiteSpect’s Omnichannel capabilities are not affected, meaning users get not only a consistent experience across sessions but also across devices.

Chrome and FireFox will Follow Soon

Google Chrome and Mozilla FireFox browsers are following Safari’s lead. Both browsers have announced adding features to prevent user tracking. As customer privacy concerns increase, look for more and more of these tracking restrictions to come. Check out our ebook “Optimization in the Age of Anti-Tracking,” it will guide you through exactly how these changes affect your stack and what to do about it.

To learn more about SiteSpect, visit our website.