What if your ad attribution lost a significant part of its visibility? With its new update (iOS 26 / Safari), Apple will automatically remove ad click identifiers such as gclid or fbclid from URLs, which are used to measure and optimize campaign performance in the Google Ads and Meta platforms.

Apple’s stated aim is to strengthen user privacy. But for marketers and analysts, this is a real turning point that will revolutionize the way we track and attribute campaigns.

⚠️ Concrete impacts

In practice, the consequences are manifold:

  • The loss of precise attribution will make it much more difficult to link a conversion to a campaign, keyword or acquisition channel.
  • The automatic bidding algorithms (such as Google Ads’ Smart Bidding) will have less reliable data at their disposal, reducing their effectiveness and driving up acquisition costs.
  • The remarketing will be weakened, as audiences generated from click behavior may be less complete for Safari users.
  • A growing a growing mismatch between data from advertising platforms and that from analytics tools. Google Ads or Meta will continue to report optimized performance on the platform side, while your in-house tools will show very different results.

🛠️ How can we adapt?

Fortunately, there are several ways to limit the impact of this change:

  1. Set up server-side tracking (sGTM, Conversions API, Enhanced Conversions, etc.) to bypass browser limitations and transmit conversions directly from the server.
  2. Use backup settings like the Final URL Suffix in Google Ads, which saves an alternative identifier if the gclid is deleted. This information can then be fed back into your tracking tools.
  3. Adapt the nomenclature of cookies and variables so that they are not immediately identified by Safari as tracking elements.
  4. Reinforce the quality of your UTMs and tagging governanceEven if this doesn’t result in perfect individual attribution, it at least guarantees reliable analyses at the aggregate level.
  5. Monitor and test as soon as the Safari update is rolled outupdate, comparing Safari traffic with that of other browsers and adjusting your configurations as you go along.

💡In conclusion

With this decision, Apple is accelerating the end of the click ID era. This forces us to rethink our attribution practices and invest more in server-side solutions and more robust tracking methods.

It’s crucial not to wait until production starts before taking action: advertisers and marketing teams who anticipate these changes will have a definite competitive advantage.

The Optimal Ways team is ready to help you meet these challenges. We’ve been working with retail and e-commerce players for several years, with recognized experience in implementing campaign tracking optimization solutions, including server-side.

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