Safari blocks tracking: what changes for your ad campaigns

A software update that arrived without warning has cut some of the biggest ad tracking tools out of Safari. If you have active campaigns, part of your audience has already become invisible.

Is it really worth worrying about, or is it only a problem for big players?

The block hits anyone running digital advertising with cross-site tracking tools: not just the big networks, but also SMEs running Google, Meta or programmatic campaigns. How much damage you take depends on how much traffic comes from Safari and how much your tools rely on user identity.

Apple has released an iOS update that blocks some of the best-known companies in ad tracking, stopping them from working on Safari. The list of blocked companies is decided by Apple unilaterally, with no warning and no public explanation.

For those running paid campaigns (Google Ads, Meta, programmatic), this means a share of the Safari audience is no longer trackable. You can no longer know for sure who saw your ad, who clicked and who bought.

What really happened: which companies were hit, and by how much?

Apple has updated its blocklist of tracking tools on Safari, hitting some of the most widely used platforms in advertising. The damage is already measurable, even though only 8% of users have installed the update.

According to Digiday, the platform Aditude, which helps publishers sell ad space, found that Safari on iPhone and iPad generates 11.7% of impressions and 11.4% of its clients' ad revenue. Among users who have already installed the update, eCPM (the actual revenue per thousand ads shown) has dropped 10.5%.

The Trade Desk, one of the industry's leading ad servers, was blocked without warning. Only after its engineers reported the problem as a bug did Apple lift the block in a test version, but anyone on the current version of iOS is still blocked.

The fourth quarter is when publishers and ad platforms make most of their revenue. The block landed right at the start of this period.

It's not the first time. In 2017 and 2021 Apple had already reduced tracking capabilities on Safari. In 2022, Meta stated that Apple's privacy restrictions would cause a negative impact of about $10 billion on its ad revenue in a single year. Anyone who lived through those moments knows the impact grows as users update their devices.

How much does Safari weigh on Italian traffic? The numbers you need to know

In Italy, Safari accounts for 13.4% of desktop and mobile browsers, but rises to over a third of mobile traffic. If your audience uses iPhone, the problem is real today.

Before deciding how worried to be, you need to understand how much of your traffic comes through Safari. Italian and European data tell different stories, and it's worth looking at both.

In Italy, according to StatCounter, Safari holds 13.4% of overall browser share (June 2026). In Europe the share rises to 19.9% (September 2026). But the most relevant figure for mobile campaigns is another one: Apple holds 36.5% of the smartphone market in Italy, and on iPhone the default browser is Safari.

In practice: if you sell products or services to Italian consumers and run mobile campaigns, more than a third of your smartphone audience uses an Apple device. That slice of your audience is the most exposed to Safari's restrictions.

What changes in practice for those running paid campaigns?

The block doesn't eliminate advertising on Safari, but it makes conversions invisible and prevents cross-site retargeting. If you don't adapt your measurement strategy, your reports will get worse and you won't know why.

Ad tracking works through small pieces of code (known as tags or pixels) that recognize the same user across different websites. Apple has blocked some of the companies that run these tools, preventing them from working on Safari.

The practical result: if a user sees your ad on Safari, then visits your site and buys, that conversion may not show up in your reports. Your cost per acquisition looks higher than it really is, and your optimization algorithm receives the wrong signals.

Three real-world scenarios: what happens to an e-commerce store, a professional firm and a manufacturing company?

The impact varies a lot depending on the type of business and the channel mix. Here are three examples to help you see where you stand.

Illustrative examples: numbers are meant to show the reasoning, they are not real customer data.

A fashion e-commerce store with heavy mobile traffic is the most exposed case: if 35% of users are on iPhone, a significant share of conversions could vanish from your reports. A B2B professional firm has a different problem: contact forms submitted from Safari aren't attributed to the right channel, and the sales team doesn't know where the lead came from. A manufacturing company retargeting European buyers on iPhone finds that its custom audience list is gradually emptying out.

If you run campaigns across multiple channels, it's also worth reading about how measurement and attribution are changing on Amazon Ads: the problem of fragmented data isn't limited to Safari.

What alternatives exist for measuring and targeting without Safari tracking?

There are concrete ways to reduce your reliance on cross-site tracking: some require technical development, others are accessible even without a dedicated IT team.

Server-side conversion tracking is the most robust technical solution: it moves tracking from the browser (where Apple can block it) to your website's server, where Apple has no access. It requires a developer, but it's compatible with Google Tag Manager and Meta's Conversions API.

First-party data is the most underrated resource. If you have a CRM with customer emails, you can upload those lists to ad platforms and build lookalike audiences without depending on cookies. It's a strategy that works no matter what Apple does.

If you want to dig deeper into diversifying your channels, take a look at the new opportunities offered by ChatGPT Ads as an alternative channel for reaching audiences that slip past traditional tracking.

Why it's being talked about now: is the Italian advertising market really at risk?

The Italian digital advertising market is worth €6.2 billion and growing. But a growing share of that value depends on tracking tools that Apple is gradually dismantling.

According to the Osservatorio Internet Media at Politecnico di Milano, in 2025 the internet advertising market in Italy reached €6.2 billion (+11% over the previous year), accounting for 53% of the entire advertising market. Growth of up to €7 billion is expected for 2026.

Growth and vulnerability go hand in hand. The more digital weighs on total ad investment, the more every technical restriction has a real impact on company budgets. And the Safari block isn't an isolated event: it's the latest in a series of moves Apple has been making since 2017.

The critical point is the fourth quarter. That's when the biggest budgets are concentrated (Black Friday, Christmas, winter sales), and the block landed right at the start of that window. If you haven't yet adapted your measurement strategy, you risk making the wrong decisions in the most important months of the year.

It's worth remembering that other technical changes are also reshaping campaign measurement: the way YouTube counts views has changed, and if you haven't updated your benchmarks, you risk reading your data in a distorted way.

What concrete risks do you need to manage in the coming months?

The main risk isn't the block itself, but making budget decisions based on incomplete data. There are also secondary risks tied to depending on single vendors.

Apple's block hits asymmetrically: if you rely on a vendor that ended up on Apple's blacklist, you lose tracking capability overnight, with no warning. The Trade Desk was blocked and then partially restored in a test version, but anyone on the current version of iOS is still blocked.

This creates a dependency risk on third-party providers you don't control. If your ad stack relies on a single ad server or a single tracking tool, you're exposed to sudden disruptions.

How to get started: the steps to adapt your strategy now

You don't need to overhaul everything in a week. Four priority actions, in the right order, are enough to limit the damage and build a stronger foundation.

If you run an e-commerce store, you can also find useful ideas in how Shopify is integrating AI channels to distribute products on surfaces where traditional tracking isn't the main constraint.

What are the most common mistakes people make when tackling this problem?

The first mistake is waiting for the problem to get big before acting. The second is changing the numbers in your reports without changing the strategy behind them.

Many marketing teams see their data get worse and look for explanations in the campaign content or the budget. Rarely do they look at tracking first. If your numbers have dropped in recent weeks for no obvious reason, the Safari block is the first place to look.

How can you tell if your measurement strategy is holding up?

There are specific indicators that tell you whether your data is reliable or whether you're flying blind. Tracking them every week, at least for the next two months, is essential.

A useful comparison: look at how you're measuring campaigns on other channels. If you've already tackled attribution on Amazon Ads with AI formats, the same attribution questions apply here too. Data fragmentation is a cross-cutting problem, not one specific to Safari.

So, is it worth acting now, or can you wait?

It depends on how much Safari traffic you have and how much you rely on cross-site tracking. But waiting has a cost that grows every week.

It's worth it if you have active paid campaigns with more than 15% of traffic from Safari or iOS, you run retargeting on mobile audiences, or your ROAS depends on last-click attribution. Every week without action means more distorted data and less accurate budget decisions.

Somewhere in between: your Safari traffic is between 5% and 15% and you already have some server-side measures in place. You can proceed with medium priority, but you still need to plan your tracking update by the end of the year.

Not yet if you operate a subscription model, have very little mobile traffic, or your campaigns rely entirely on well-established first-party data. In that case, the Safari block has only a marginal impact on your operations.

How we see it at SHM

For us, the Safari block isn't a technical crisis: it's a reminder that building your advertising strategy on data you don't control is a structural risk. AI and platform algorithms work wonders when they receive good signals, but if the input data is incomplete, they optimize in the wrong direction.

We've worked with companies that ended up cutting effective campaigns because their reports showed falling ROAS, without realizing the problem was in the tracking, not the campaign. The first thing we do in these cases is a tracking audit: understanding what is really being measured, what is being lost, and where the data is reliable.

We believe technology should help you make better decisions, not create the illusion of control. A report that looks precise but is built on partial data is more dangerous than one that admits its limits.

If you want to understand where you're exposed and how to strengthen your measurement strategy, you can start with an analysis of your current stack through our strategic AI integration service, or look at how to build more resilient campaigns with our support on Google Ads campaigns and Meta campaigns. For an overview of the topic, explore all the articles in the Marketing and ADV performance cluster.

Frequently Asked Questions

The real problem isn't Safari: it's discovering that your budget decisions were based on data you never really controlled.