Apple Is Silently Killing Your UTM Tracking - And Most Marketers Do Not Know It
Your UTM cookies are not expiring when you told them to. They are dying early - sometimes in 24 hours or less - because Apple ITP is rewriting the rules. Every iOS user, every Safari user, and an increasing chunk of Chrome users are losing your tracking data before they ever convert.
If this sounds familiar, you are not alone
- Your attribution window shows weird spikes and drops with no explanation
- Safari and iOS users convert in your reports at half the rate of Chrome users - but you know they are buying
- Long sales cycles are killing your data because cookies expire before the sale closes
- You are attributing everything to direct or none because the original UTM cookie disappeared
ITP is not a bug - it is a feature. And it is here to stay.
What Apple ITP actually does to your tracking
1. First-party cookies get truncated
Even when you set a 90-day cookie window, ITP-capable browsers (Safari, iOS, now portions of Chrome) can cap that at 7 days, 24 hours, or even expire immediately depending on the specific ITP version and whether the user is in private browsing mode.
2. Client-side tracking is the first casualty
Cookies set via JavaScript (which is how most UTM tracking works) are treated as third-party even on your own domain if there is any cross-site activity. ITP marks them for early expiration or complete blocking.
3. The referrer gets stripped
When users click from social to your site, Safari increasingly strips the referrer information entirely - meaning you lose the source data before your tracking even has a chance to fire.
The real cost is not missing cookies - it is missing revenue visibility
- Your Facebook and Instagram campaigns look like they are underperforming when they are actually performing normally - iOS users just dropped the cookie before converting
- Your cost-per-acquisition calculations are wrong because you are not seeing the full customer journey
- You are making channel investment decisions based on corrupted data
- Long B2B sales cycles (30-90+ days) are almost entirely invisible in your attribution
You cannot optimize what you cannot see. And ITP is making whole channels invisible.
What survives ITP
- First-party data captured server-side survives ITP restrictions
- Conversion modeling that does not depend on persistent cookies
- Cross-device and cross-session attribution that does not rely on browser cookies
- Data that stays accurate regardless of which browser your prospects use
The future of tracking is not more cookies - it is smarter tracking that works with privacy, not against it.
Why waiting for Apple to fix this will not work
This is exactly why we built UTM Grabber
UTM Grabber captures and stores UTM data server-side - so it survives ITP restrictions, Safari privacy modes, and browser cookie limits.
- Server-side cookie storage that ITP cannot touch
- First-party data capture that preserves attribution across long sales cycles
- Works on every browser, every device, every privacy setting
- GDPR compliant - you are capturing your own data on your own servers
UTM Grabber is built for teams who cannot afford invisible traffic
- B2B companies with long sales cycles (30-90+ days)
- Any business with significant Safari/iOS traffic (often 25-40%+ of visitors)
- Ecommerce brands where customers browse on mobile, convert later
- Lead gen businesses where the convert event happens far from the click
If your prospects use iPhones, Safari, or take more than a week to buy, this is for you.