After Apple's latest Safari restrictions, ad tech is rallying behind IAB Tech Lab's Trusted Server Framework, Digiday reports, though doubts remain.
I share the doubts. Moving collection to the server changes where the data gets caught. It doesn't change what you're collecting: a trail on one person.
Apple's message is simple. It's tired of the circumvention, and if you use Safari, there's a hole in your tracking.
None of this is new. Safari was first to drop third-party cookies. The walled gardens stopped allowing user-level tracking as far back as 2016. That's 10-plus years.
Our customers aren't affected by this move, because they stopped depending on stitched paths a long time ago. The ones who get hurt are still treating the web as user-level measurement.
If your reporting needs a clean path to purchase, don't fix the pipe. Fix the question. Measure what changed because of the spend, in aggregate.
Responding to Apple’s Safari crackdown pushes ad tech toward server-side solutions, but doubts remain, Digiday