What are the impacts of not implementing Custom Tracking Domain(CTD) to mitigate Intelligent Tracking Prevention(ITP) 2.2 by Apple?
What is the purpose of CTD?
Custom tracking domain (CTD) is a way to maintain reliable tracking with the tracking protection mechanisms introduced by Apple's ITP 2.2 update. ITP 2.2 primarily aimed to protect the user's privacy and as a result, change the way cookies are handled. ITP 2.2 cuts the first-party cookie’s lifespan from seven days to one day(24 hours). CTD was introduced to essentially overcome this challenge by using a subdomain of the advertiser's root domain, our servers are able to set 1st party cookies in the server response headers rather than relying on JavaScript running in the browser. Implementing CTD will earn advertisers an ITP 2.2 compliant status on Commission Factory.
Impact on affiliates?
From an affiliate's perspective, the shortened cookie period by ITP 2.2 can cause concern over losing credit and commissions for traffic being sent to advertisers as the cookie will only be live for 24 hours.
Impact on Advertisers?
Advertisers can risk losing out on revenue including a lower number of affiliates joining the program if their sites are not updated with CTD. Any orders made via apple safari browser that comes from affiliates 24 hours after the cookie has dropped, will not be tracked, and for this reason, affiliates would prefer working with ITP compliant advertisers. Affiliates that work with advertisers regardless of their ITP compliance status will be looking at a higher commission rate to make up for the risk of losing commissions.
How to implement CTD?
You can find the detailed instructions on how setup CTD here:
https://help.commissionfactory.com/custom-domain-tracking
Please note that you are required to inform your account contact once this is implemented as we will need to make changes on our end in order for it to be effective.
Conclusion
We have made it compulsory for all our advertisers to be ITP 2.2 compliant to ensure they benefit from the program. Advertisers' compliance status will be made visible to affiliates; hence, we would suggest that you have this setup. There is only more to benefit from implementing CTD than to not.