A few weeks ago, we told you about the launch of the new Apple Mail Privacy Policy in an article.
The time has come, Apple’s latest operating system, IOS 15, just launched yesterday on September 20th with the new Mail Privacy Protection on the Apple devices.
Among all the new features found in this update, there is one that is very significant and will definitely influence all email campaigns.
Now that the new operating system is out, let’s discover together what it is and how it will affect us.
What is Mail Privacy Protection?
According to Apple: “Mail Privacy Protection prevents senders from learning whether an email has been opened, and hides IP addresses so senders can’t learn a user’s location or use it to build a profile on them.”
Basically, it allows anyone to keep their IP address and email actions private from senders.
By anonymizing open tracking, for example, the Mail Privacy Protection blocks email senders from knowing how recipients are engaging with your email marketing campaign.
We could still look at click tracking, but it will be more difficult to identify engagement, or estimate the success of an email campaign without open tracking data.
How does it work?
When someone first opens up the Apple Mail app after installing the update to IOS15, the application will ask them to choose if they want to hide their information “Protect Mail activity,” or not “Don’t protect Mail activity.”
None of the options are preselected:
When people select to hide their information, Apple will blur the email tracking by downloading and sending the emails through a proxy server to pre-load the content before sending it to the user, whether they open it or not.
Here is the simplified process of Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection :
What does this mean for email marketers?
Privacy has become a big concern lately, not just in the email industry.
Mail Privacy Protection just went into effect yesterday, so we don’t have many numbers, but predictions tend to show an increase of the Apple Mail open rate of around 70%.
This indicates that even Gmail.com or Yahoo.com mailboxes could create false opens if they are connected to the Apple Mail app.
Even if users usually use the Gmail app, or a browser to read their emails, having the mailbox configured with the Apple Mail app could falsely affect the open rate.
It becomes harder for marketers to clean up their databases by removing inactive addresses or set up email retargeting campaigns for people who did not open the first email sent, because of the false open rate.
Because we no longer have accurate open rates information for users that are using the Apple Mail app, it is almost impossible to target this audience with dynamic email campaigns and content that adapts to the time of the opening of the email.
Here are the potential effects of this update on your email campaigns:
- Audiences, segmentation, or targeting based on the last open rate will be useless
- Automated flows and paths based on opening an email will need to be redesigned
- A/B testing of the subject lines that use opens to identify the winner will no longer work
- Send Time Optimization will become inaccurate
- Localized content powered by opens or IP addresses, the location of the closest store, etc, will not be accurate.e liste
- Tracking email deliverability and keeping lists clean will be much more difficult.
Do you need professional help to set up your new email campaign with this new update?
What email marketers should do now that the IOS 15 update is available?
Over 50% of email opens come from Apple Mail, which means we cannot ignore this new update.
Even if Mail Privacy Protect is kind of scary, we can still optimize and create an effective email marketing campaign.
Here are some tips from our email deliverability experts:
Clean up your email list:
• Review your current open rates by email clients.
• Try to create an audience using non-Apple Mail clients.
• Ensure SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and BIMI are correct for email authentication.
• Remove inactive and invalid subscribers from your active mailing list.
• Send periodic reconfirmation/re-engagement campaigns.
Use other metrics to track email deliverability:
• Ignore open rates data.
• Include conversion rates in your report clicks rate, for example.
• Focus on negative metrics such as bounce and spam reports to judge your traffic quality.
Test your email campaign:
Use A/B testing as much as possible to find what works and what doesn’t. You can try to test your email campaign on the following items:
• The Send Time.
• Play with the texts in the subject line, eg, personalization, questions, length of the text to see what works best.
• Modify the Call to Action to increase the click rate.
• Personalize your emails as much as possible.
Don’t hesitate to do all the tests you believe are relevant, and adapt them to each of your customers and leads.
Email marketing will continue to evolve
As the email industry evolves best practices will evolve with it. This is not a problem, it’s an opportunity for us to find innovative solutions and to optimize our email deliverability experience and results.
Our MailSoar experts will offer you the very best services to maximize the success rate of your email marketing campaigns.
If you need help regarding this new Mail Privacy Protection, reach out to our team, we will be happy to help you.
MailSoar, a deliverability business, will help your deliverability grow, and thereby help your business grow.
Whether you’re an experienced email-sender looking to perfect the delivery of your infrastructure or that a big part of your business ROI is tied to email landing at the right place, our team of experts is used to manage the ongoing deliverability of massive senders from all industries.
Contact MailSoar to optimize your email deliverability and increase your mailing reputation with the best solutions.
