Safari and ITP limit cookies to about 24 hours, which
• breaks the usual attribution
• and creates data drift between GA4 and CRM.
In practice, online paths look solid, but purchases in CRM are logged later or separately - numbers don’t add up.
What mechanisms drive the distortions?
Cookies don’t persist across devices, so online and offline events don’t map correctly. Without a single identifier and offline imports GA4 loses the link between the customer journey and revenue.
I’ve seen cases where conversions in GA4 and CRM sales run in parallel but don’t align: ROI seems off, budgets swing.
What can we take away?
• Takeaway: account for Safari and ITP limits, consider server‑side attribution and offline data transfer to connect online behavior to revenue.
• This helps you see a cohesive customer story rather than fragmented data stories.
What should we do next?
• Implement a single user identifier on site and in CRM so the user logs in, and send offline events to GA4 via Data Import or Conversions API with that identifier.
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