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Hong Kong industry experts weigh in on Apple's ad-tracking restrictions

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Safari's "Intelligent Tracking Prevention", which was rolled out yesterday with the new iOS 11 launch, is now closely monitored by the advertising industry.The feature has been under spotlight as it restricts ad technology companies from tracking users across sites for ad targeting. After its public reveal last week, six of the leading players in the US advertising industry panned an open letter to Apple, calling it to "rethink its plan to impose its own cookie standards and risk disrupting the valuable digital advertising ecosystem that funds much of today’s digital content and services.""Apple’s unilateral and heavy-handed approach is bad for consumer choice and bad for the ad-supported online content and services consumers love," the six groups said in the letter.In which, Apple is completely fine with."Ad tracking technology has become so pervasive that it is possible for ad tracking companies to recreate the majority of a person's web browsing history. This information is collected without permission and is used for ad re-targeting, which is how ads follow people around the Internet," it said in a statement to The Loop.The new feature would not block ads or interfere with legitimate tracking on the sites that people actually click on and visit, at the same time handing users back their right to privacy, Apple added.Still, similar to companies in the US, most Hong Kong advertising agencies acknowledge that the new feature makes a hurdle for brands and advertisers.Local agencies: an expected hurdle"We typically see around 30% of traffic coming from Safari for most of our clients," Saron Leung, head of business development & strategy, iProspect Hong Kong explained."For advertisers with products which require a longer consideration lead time before purchase, such as airlines, cruises, insurance and banking, the impact would be more significant."Ego Lau, general manager, Carat Hong Kong, added that it would be harder to analyse and understand internet user behaviour and pattern over time."We've been moving toward personalisation to improve relevancy and connection with audiences, thanks to the rise of technology, but this is doing the reverse," he explained."It will be a challenge for all the advertisers and agencies. We will have to take note of this new feature and keep a close eye on the performance change in the coming."On the other hand, Antony Yiu, head of digital, North Asia, head of search & performance APAC at MEC, thinks the impact will be minimal as many marketers focused on the re-marketing part that is associated with specific audience."Many of the ad networks and premium publishers are still selling on a site visitor basis," he explained. "For advanced programmatic partners, there have been a gradual trend to move away from cookie-based audience profiling to more on user ID based.""In 2015, when Microsoft initially decided to set their then new version of IE with 'Do Not Track' as the default option before their reversal, as well as the implementation of EU cookie laws, I think most publishers and users have seen the days of cookie-based tracking to be limited."A price rise to come?Furthermore, Yiu said he would not expect a price rise for the inventory on browsers.iProspect Hong Kong's Leung agreed, adding he couldn't see advertisers up bidding on their remarketing dramatically within the 24 hours."Typically, many advertisers heavy up their re-marketing activity based on most recent cookies. Inventory is typically not an issue with programmatic, hence the biggest challenge remains how to convert a potential customer to a lead or sale within a shorter time-frame.""I actually see this as a positive challenge and would encourage advertisers to put more focus on stronger remarketing creative or offers."Marketing has reached out to several brands and agencies to learn their opinions.

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