How to Apple-Proof Your Affiliate Program
Is your affiliate marketing program Apple-proof?
Tim Cook & Co. are gunning for it. Apple’s Safari 11 browser is going to make life harder for advertisers and affiliate marketers alike by severely limiting third-party cookies. They’re going to expire automatically in just 24 hours.
Will your affiliate marketing efforts take an immediate hit?
Not if You Use First-Party Cookies
Third-party cookies are living on borrowed time. The difference is in the domain – these types of cookies point to a domain that is different from the site you visit. No bueno no longer, as far as Apple is concerned.
They are also more likely to be blocked (by ad blockers) or deleted (by the user). The trend has been bad for third-party cookies, and it is accelerating toward their demise.
First-party cookies, on the other hand, identify the site that places them on your computer or smartphone. Apple is still going to allow “first-party trackers” to work for 30 days.
Who Uses First-Party Cookies?
LeadDyno, of course. Our guys saw this day coming when we began building our affiliate tracking platform in 2012, so we’ve always used first-party cookies.
We’ve also favored direct integrations for purchase tracking instead of simple pixel tracking, which is a good thing because the latter is about to be toast as well.
Not using LeadDyno currently? I would ask your current provider about this.
What About Ad Blockers?
Ad blockers are becoming more and more prevalent. They also render third-party cookies useless.
It’s the same store as with Safari – stick with the first-party variety to be safe here.
