How Apple's New Privacy Effort Will Impact Travel Marketing
Skift Take
Privacy efforts will keep chipping away at old school digital advertising practices. Travel marketers need to persuade more consumers to consent to share their data directly. They should consider new ideas, like creating media networks and data co-ops, to help.
Apple plans to tighten its privacy practices in a way that will undermine the ability of travel companies and other businesses to run semi-personalized advertising campaigns.
Apple is set in the coming weeks to release a new operating system, iOS 14, that will require app developers to get users' clear consent to track their online behavior. The change affects players that place ads in apps on behalf of brands, such as placing ads for an online agency in a dating app.
"Now that users must opt-in before tracking them, technically all tracking methods go out the window," said Quentin Lederer, chief operating officer of WIHP Hotels, a marketing specialist.
Digital marketing agencies and platforms like Google via its AdMob business will no longer collect a person's advertising identifier on Apple devices without the person's permission. Apple's ad identifier is a set of numbers that many companies use to reveal how shoppers research and buy online.
[caption id="attachment_403849" align="alignright" width="250"] A screenshot of Apple's new controls for privacy settings in its iOS 14 operating system debuting in September. Source: Apple.[/caption]
Apple has touted the move as a plus for consumers, giving them greater transparency about privacy and data sharing. Apple will also demand that app developers, such as travel brands, disclose what data they collect and who their data-sharing partners are.
We reached out to Apple for comment but didn't hear back by publication time.
The question for travel brands is how many consumers will opt out of ad targeting and tracking on iOS devices.
"If consumers clock out in large numbers, travel marketers should think more about capturing and leveraging first-party data, rather than the traditional reliance on third-party as we know it," said Carlisle Connally, vice president of marketing at Koddi, which offers advertising technology for travel companies.
First-party data refers to email addresses, phone numbers, and other information consumers agree to share directly with companies in exchange for things like loyalty program benefits. With Apple changing the game, this data will be more valuable, but some travel marketers will have to up their game in using it.
"By and large, travel brands activate their first-party data and additional data opportunities not as well as they think that they do," Sooho Choi, executive vice president and global head of travel and hospitality at Publicis Sapient, a
