#ops-supply-chain

I wrote a bit more about the upcoming changes to URL Param Slicing in iOS 17 (as first mentioned by Nik & Mois on the pod), but summarized it below. Hard to say if this will commence in 17.0 in entirety, or if it will also continue to ramp its effect with minor versions like 17.5. With the major changes to ad tracking transparency (ATT) in iOS14, we saw the heaviest came into effect in iOS14.5.

UTMs will be trimmed with Apple access points: iMessage, Apple Mail, Safari opens (Too early to say if this will include going from instagram to a Safari browsing experience - if someone tested this they should chime in)

But none the less, here’s 5 ideas for what to do when you start to notice the impact:
• Use unique short-links to essentially replace UTMs, once short-link does the redirect you can add the short-link back in (Any link shortener would due fine here)
• Use unique landing pages where appropriate instead, and rely more of page slugs, and adding UTMs with button clicks (invest in a landing page tool you really love, as you’d be making many of them, with dupes & all)
• (For affiliate marketing) Enable affiliates to sell on their own domains/channels such as their own shops
• Lean into using more post purchase surveys for closing the loop on attribution
• Or - do nothing, and see if this even impacts revenue. Us humans too often over-obsess over data, and we may find that the pull backs aren’t enough to tamper with our prior marketing experiences. But that said, If you are using UTMs for something critical like auto-applying discount codes, I’d try to refactor UTM usage for reporting only, and nothing functional.
It appears that some UTMs are unaffected at this stage, while core ad tracking params are removed, but given they up restrictions with new releases that doesn’t tell us much.