Google Ads Safari Tracking: When to Skip UTM Parameters
Your Google Ads campaigns targeting Safari and iOS users include both manual UTM parameters and Google's automatic gbraid parameter. While this doesn't break tracking, the UTMs are redundant—Google's auto-tagging handles everything.
Here's why you can simplify your setup.
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Why this happens
Apple's iOS 14+ privacy restrictions limit third-party cookie tracking. Google introduced gbraid (Google Ads Browsing ID) to track Safari and iOS conversions using privacy-safe methods.
When you add manual UTM parameters to Google Ads, Google still appends gbraid automatically for Safari/iOS traffic. Important: GA4 does NOT create duplicate sessions—auto-tagging takes precedence over manual UTMs. The UTMs are simply ignored, making them unnecessary overhead.
😰 Is this your only tracking issue?
This is just 1 of 40+ ways UTM tracking breaks. Most marketing teams have 8-12 critical issues they don't know about.
• 94% of sites have UTM errors
• Average: $8,400/month in wasted ad spend
• Fix time: 15 minutes with our report
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The simplification
You can remove manual UTM parameters from Google Ads campaigns since Google handles attribution automatically:
For Safari/iOS traffic: Google appends gbraid
For other traffic: Google appends gclid
Both parameters provide complete attribution without manual UTMs.
Steps:
- Open Google Ads account settings
- Verify auto-tagging is enabled (Settings → Account Settings → Auto-tagging)
- Remove any manual UTM parameters from your final URL templates
- Save changes
Google Ads will continue tracking all traffic automatically with the appropriate parameter.
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