Maximising Your Email Marketing Strategy with Apple's iOS15 Privacy Updates
To Maximize Your Email Marketing Strategy You First Need to Understand the Significance of the Apple's iOS15 Privacy Update
According to a study conducted by Litmus Email Analytics, which analysed nearly a billion opened emails, Apple dominates the global email client market with a share of over 63% (1). The study revealed that two of the top three email clients are from Apple. This demonstrates the widespread use of Apple products for email communication.
Litmus top 10 email clients overall – 1-31st May, 2021
This chart is based on Litmus Email Analytics reporting, available here. Data may be incorrect or misreported in some instances.
As many people use Apple's email clients to receive and read mail, the recent privacy updates in iOS15 may have significant implications for email marketers worldwide. It is important for businesses and marketers to understand the potential impact of these updates on their email marketing efforts and take steps to prepare for any changes.
Mail Privacy Protection (MPP)
Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) is a privacy feature introduced in Apple's iOS15 update. MPP aims to minimise tracking in email marketing by routing remote content, such as images and tracking pixels, through multiple proxy servers, preventing the sender from learning the user's IP address. As a result, email senders will only receive generic information rather than detailed information about user behaviour. This could impact the performance of email marketing campaigns and make it more challenging for businesses and marketers to understand the success of their efforts. The following video is an outtake from Apple’s keynote speech on the release of iOS15.
Apple explains this new feature’s privacy benefits to iOS15 users.
OK, we hear you, so how will this affect your email marketing strategy?
Email marketing platforms track end-user engagement to understand the success of their campaigns. This is done by embedding a unique, transparent, single-pixel image into each email, which is counted as open whenever it is downloaded from the server. This allows businesses and marketers to collect data on email engagement, such as the number of emails received, opened, and clicked, as well as identifiable information about the user/user’s device, such as the IP address, the user agent, the email client, device, and other information. This data is used to improve the relevance of future email content.
Apple will now treat any content block, such as images and the pixels we discussed, as remote content. How they handle this ‘remote’ content will now affect your email marketing analytics and attribution data. Not only that, it could also affect your automation flows from triggering correctly or even at all.
Two of the significant features of Apple’s MPP updates are:
Open tracking prevention: this works by Apple downloading remote content in the background to prevent accurate tracking of opens.
IP Protection: Mail will download remote content through a series of proxy servers to hide the IP address of the subscriber.
How else will MPP affect a marketer’s email marketing strategy?
The update to Apple's Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) feature in iOS15 will prevent email marketers from fully understanding the engagement of their campaigns with users who have enabled MPP on their Apple email client. This could have significant consequences for businesses that rely on email marketing, as it is a highly profitable channel with an average ROI of $36 for every $1 spent. In 2022, email marketing is estimated to generate $9.62 billion in revenue worldwide.
The Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) updates in Apple's iOS15 may have other significant implications for email marketers, including:
Inability to track whether a subscriber has opened an email, as the Apple Mail app will report 100% open rates for contacts with MPP enabled.
Loss of user-specific information, such as location and device, as all emails are automatically opened.
Potential need to rebuild automation flows that rely on email open tracking, as these may be affected by the update.
These changes could make it more difficult for businesses and marketers to understand the performance of their email campaigns and rely on email open rates as a key performance indicator.
How to prepare your businesses email marketing strategy for MPP and iOS15
To prepare for the impact of Apple's iOS15 and Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) updates on email marketing campaigns, businesses and marketers can take the following steps:
Use an email marketing platform that filters out false opens caused by MPP. This may reduce the data available, but the remaining data will be proportionally accurate.
Review any campaigns that rely on automation, especially if they are triggered by email opens or lack of opens.
Follow best practices for email sign-up, unsubscribing, and permissions to ensure explicit consent from all subscribers.
Shift focus from email opens to clicks as a metric for optimisation, as clicks are not expected to be affected by MPP.
