Recent changes by Apple are sending a bunch of marketers into a frenzy (again). UTMs might be cut off, attribution windows might shrink, and everyone’s scrambling to figure out how they’ll “track the funnel.” It’s like every year we’re surprised that privacy is making tracking harder, and yet somehow we still act shocked.
I’ve had more discussions I can count related to, “Yeah, but is our tracking really correct?” At some point, I had to stop and ask, “What are we actually trying to prove here?” I remember a campaign we launched for a client, not even a particularly flashy one, just a solid offer and a well-written message. Within a week, lead volume had jumped 20%. It was enough of an indicator that this was working. But instead of seeing that success and expanding from there, meetings spent hours trying to verify the tracking and if the leads really came from that campaign. Concluding that we needed to invest into a more solid tracking system.
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We were losing time arguing about the time, the ad, the bid, the platform that caused each lead, instead of doing more of what was clearly working. Marketing became less about action and more tracking technology.
Somewhere between the invention of the UTM tag and the rise of attribution models, we turned marketers into spreadsheet fanatics, in search for “perfect tracking.” Clicks, conversions, ROAS, and 34 other acronyms now rule the dashboards. The problem? We can’t see the forest behind the tracking tree, and forgot why we’re here in the first place.
Yes, tracking is useful. But if you spend more time debugging analytics tools than crafting campaigns, something is off. “The tracking isn’t working” has become the go-to excuse for lack of competence in marketing (spolier: the tracking will never work).
Some of the most effective marketing in history happened before we had any tracking at all. You don’t need click-level granularity to see that brand search went up after a campaign. That’s signal. Leads dropping off even though ad spend is increasing? Also signal. Cross-referencing a few metrics such as brand queries vs form fills vs pipeline can tell you a lot. You just need curiosity, correlation, and a bit of imagination.
And to quote Goodhart’s Law When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure
. When we only follow the numbers, we often stop listening to what the numbers mean. (I know, this applies to a lot more than just marketing).
So yes, Apple is cutting off UTMs. Tracking will get fuzzier. But maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it forces us to return to logic, testing, iteration, and simple common sense. To rely less on attribution software and more on observation. Marketing is not about instrumentation – it’s about moving people.
Let’s not forget that.
PS: Here’s a tip to spot someone who is hiding behind the tracking and KPIs: the KPIs they present over time are always different. i.e. One month it is Website visitors, the next month it is email open rate. You need less than a handful of KPIs to know how things are going – ensure they’re always the same ones presented in the same manner.
About me: I’m a fractional CMO for large travel technology companies helping turn them into industry leaders. I’m also the co-founder of 10minutes.news, a hotel news media that is unsensational, factual and keeps hoteliers updated on the industry.
