In this blog, Andrew LeClair, Director of Product Marketing, explains the changes coming from iOS26 and how marketers can strategize to accommodate these updates.
Apple’s new iOS26 was designed to “eliminate distractions, with privacy built in from the ground up.” In practice, that means stricter protections that fundamentally change the way marketing messages are delivered, displayed, and measured. In this case, the challenge isn’t just understanding these changes—it’s quickly adapting current strategies to ensure that marketing messages still get opened, read, and acted on. Here’s the TLDR to preserving campaign impact:
Safari Gets Even More Private
iOS 26’s latest enhancements bring a wave of new privacy protections, including Advanced Tracking and Fingerprinting Protection (ATFP) and Link Tracking Protection (LTP). That means that Safari now prevents known fingerprinting scripts from reading state that could be used for navigational tracking, such as document.referrer, utm_, gclid, and dclid, to name a few. This applies whether or not someone is using Private Browsing mode.
For consumers, this is a big win for browsing privacy and a step toward reducing cross-site tracking. But for marketers, it means the potential loss of campaign performance data that many analytics solutions depend on.
But here’s the good news. None of Movable Ink’s content is impacted. None of our query parameters (MI_U, MI_ECMP, MI_NAME) are on Apple’s known-blocked list, and none of them were stripped by Safari during user testing. That means that all Movable Ink reporting, measurement, and analytics are in perfect working order, without any disruptions or data loss.
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Email isn’t the only channel impacted by iOS26. Apple has also made significant changes to the SMS experience with the introduction of Spam and Unknown Sender folders.
While not enabled by default, Unknown Senders gives consumers the ability to route messages from senders not currently saved as a contact or “marked as known” to a separate folder within their Messages app. These messages are still delivered, but consumers don’t receive a notification when it is received. Instead, a badge appears on the folder menu within Messages to show the number of messages waiting to be read.
This update means that marketers leveraging SMS must prioritize a Contact Card strategy to ensure that consumers save their number. Otherwise, consumers are bound to miss these text messages—even if they’re opted-in for your program.
The Spam folder, on the other hand, is turned on by default and is designed to filter out potentially malicious messages, suspicious or unverified texts, and phishing attempts. Like the messages in the Unknown Sender folder, messages routed to Spam still show as delivered, though consumers do not see a badge or receive any notifications indicating unread messages.
Note: Apple has not disclosed the exact criteria for sorting messages into Spam versus the Unknown Sender folder.
As privacy becomes the default, zero- and first-party data are more valuable than ever. This data is unaffected by the changes from Apple’s iOS26 and remains the most reliable source of truth about what your customers want, need, and expect. Brands that invest in collecting and activating this data into personalized experiences will continue to outpace the competition.
2. Implement a Contact Card Strategy
If you haven’t already, now is the time to implement a Contact Card strategy. This not only makes your messages more recognizable, but it also ensures that they won't be sent to Unknown Senders or Spam. Consider adding it to your onboarding journey, sending targeted outreach to customers who have not yet saved you as a contact, adding contact banners to emails opened on a mobile device, or sending a dedicated campaign via an in-app message.
3. Leverage Proprietary Insights to Improve Performance
Movable Ink provides unique, strategic insights that aren’t available in any other solution—including the ability to assess the performance of each block and canvas across metrics like clicks, conversions, and revenue. These detailed insights make it easy to understand how each element of content impacts performance, and informs how to optimize your content going forward. Additionally, Real-Time Data Exports allow you to automatically send this data to any solution of your choice, filling potential gaps left by ATFP and LTP.
Ultimately, iOS26 makes one thing clear: privacy is no longer optional, it’s the default. For marketers, success will come from embracing these changes head-on by building trust and adding value into every interaction. The brands that adapt fastest won’t just maintain performance; they’ll stand out in a world where consumer attention is harder than ever to earn.
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