Monday Briefing: Apple's Safari Update Blocks The Trade Desk

James Murray
October 05, 2026

Good morning, it's James here. Apple shipped iOS 27 on Sept. 14. As of last week, The Trade Desk, which Adweek calls the largest indie demand-side platform, still couldn't serve ads in Safari on updated iPhones and iPads.

The Lead: Apple's Safari Update Blocks The Trade Desk

What happened. iOS 27 began rolling out on Sept. 14 with a short, private list of domains that Safari always blocks (PPC Land). Apple has not published the list. According to AdExchanger, this month Apple added The Trade Desk's Unified ID 2.0, ID5, Audigent, LiveRamp and Permutive to it, along with adsrvr.org (AdExchanger). The Trade Desk's Ian Meyers wrote in a bug report to Apple, "Adsrvr.org is The Trade Desk's core ad request and delivery domain, not identity." The Trade Desk's own test call on yahoo.com, attached to that report, shows Safari blocking its bids and passing Google's. Apple's last reply on the ticket was, "I will let you know if and when any changes are available for you to test."

Why CMOs should care. PPC Land described Safari as "the browser where identity products were meant to earn their fees." Five of them are now on Apple's block list. PPC Land also explained why the adsrvr.org entry is worse for buyers. "Identity loss lowers what a demand-side platform will bid; a blocked delivery domain removes the bid." The timing is bad for The Trade Desk, which cut about 575 jobs, around 15% of its workforce, on Sept. 4. Meanwhile, the court's adtech remedies left Google "structurally intact," as Adweek put it last week (Adweek).

The take. Apple says it is investigating and has given no date. I would not wait for one. Ask your agency what share of your programmatic impressions went to Safari in the two weeks before Sept. 14, and what share went there since. Then ask which identity vendors in your plan are on Apple's list, and whether you are still paying their data fees on Safari audiences. I would not assume a standard delivery report flags any of this, so ask for the browser split directly.

In Partnership with: Modash

The best influencer marketing advice never comes from a report

Think about the last thing that got you fired up about your job this year. Odds are it didn't come from a report. It came from someone who does the job, saying what happened when they tried it.

So we've filled a day with people like that.

Maya Shaff, ŌURA. Leah Walker, Adobe. Georgia Humphries, Stanley 1913. Enara Roy, Halfday. Tyler Vaught, Edelman. Josh Rangel, Ogilvy. Sarah Whittle, ex-Crocs and Duolingo.

And that's just the first wave of speakers.

Return on Influence Festival '26 is a free, virtual day dedicated to influencer marketing. Like any good festival, there are stages. But no mud, no queues, and absolutely no porta-potties.

Save your spot

By The Numbers: $1.3 Billion

That is what Nike spent on demand creation last quarter, up 5% "primarily due to higher brand marketing expense, reflecting higher investment in key sports events" (Nike). In the same quarter revenue fell 4% to $11.2 billion, and operating overhead fell 6% on "lower wage-related expense and lower other administrative costs." Nike also announced Pace, a program it expects to save about $2.5 billion through fiscal 2031, and guided full-year revenue to a high-single-digit decline.

So Nike is taking cost out of overhead and putting more into brand during a revenue decline. That is a real data point for any CFO conversation about where to cut. Nike Brand Digital revenue fell 13% in the quarter.

Musical Chairs

CMO tenure. CMOs who started in 2010 typically stayed four years, while those who took the job from 2022 on "lasted just 2.6 years," per a Findem and CMO Huddles survey of 13,000 U.S. marketing professionals (Digiday). Software CMOs averaged 27 months. CMO Huddles CEO Drew Neisser said "too many CMOs are being handed transformation-sized mandates on trial-period timelines."

Cava hired John Ludeke, chief brand officer at Dr. Squatch, as CMO effective Oct. 12 (Marketing Dive). Cava spends just over 1% of revenue on marketing, against about 3% at Chipotle, and its same-restaurant sales rose 9% last quarter. Cava had been without a marketing chief since Andrew Rebhun left in August.

Jon Cook is leaving VML and WPP Creative after three decades. Eric Campbell succeeds him as global CEO of VML, and Cook stays until March 2027 (Adweek). If VML is your agency, ask now who on your account moves.

The Reading List

How Thorne built a brand platform before its $3.8B sale to P&G (Marketing Dive) Thorne's consumer research found that its scientific rigor mattered less to buyers than the company thought.
Marketing's upper middle embraces AI creative production (Digiday) Wyndham now makes 15 times as many assets, and Opella 20 times. BetMGM still keeps some work with humans because it hasn't "found that trust in the machine yet."
Gartner says AI will let most top marketing teams cut entry-level roles by 2030 (Marketing Dive) 18% of 1,303 senior marketers have already cut some roles. Gartner's advice is to give junior marketers "exposure to higher-value work earlier."
Why Scarlett Johansson's beauty brand couldn't last (Adweek) Johansson stayed mostly out of The Outset's marketing, and a Columbia professor argues the product loses interest without a credible link to the celebrity.

One More Thing

The Trade Desk's ticket is public. It is WebKit bug 324771, and Apple's replies so far have been posted there. If Safari matters to your media plan, bookmark it.

See you next Monday.

—James