iOS 15 Update Offers Mail Privacy Protection to Users -- Learn How It’s Impacting Email Marketing

Apple released its latest iOS 15 update on September 20, 2021 and it came with a new feature for Apple Mail users called Mail Privacy Protection.

The Mail Privacy Protection update protects consumer privacy by preventing email senders from learning information about a user’s mail activity, including seeing if they’ve opened the email you’ve sent to them.

Apple Mail users are now able to select from two prompts following this update:

• Protect Mail Activity: Hide IP address and privately load all remote content.
• Don’t Protect Mail Activity: Show IP address and load any remote content directly on your device.

 

What is the Impact of Hiding the User's IP?

Hiding the end user’s IP address impacts two things: Opens of an email campaign and Clicks inside the campaign.

All email campaigns have a small image pixel located inside. Once a user opens the email, that pixel is downloaded, and that is what tells us the open rate.

Apple Mail will now automatically pre-download the small image pixel, therefore showing us inflated open rates.

The number of clicks inside of an email will still be accurate. However, if the user selected "Protect Mail Activity" then it will create a proxy IP address, therefore showing us the rough data (that there was a click) but not tying it back to the specific user that clicked.

 

How is iMarket Solutions Addressing This?

As your partner in digital marketing and email marketing for contractors, we want to assure you that we can still effectively and successfully run email campaigns for our valued clients! This update does not change how emails land in users’ inboxes. It does change how your results are reported. We expect other email clients, like Google and Microsoft, to follow suit on email privacy. iMarket Solutions is adapting now to prepare for future privacy plans.

 

The Impact on Reporting:

• Total number of delivered contacts will not change and will be accurate: We can still land in the inbox of an MPP-enabled (Mail Privacy Protection) user.
• Open rates will exclude data from MPP-enabled contacts: Since Apple Mail is counting all MPP-enabled mail as “open”, that will inflate open rates. Therefore, we will remove anyone opening an email with MPP-enabled, however, this will not show “the full picture.” It is important to note that iOS users account for about 60% of the email client share.
• Number of clicks in an email campaign will be accurate but not attributed to a user: When an MPP-enabled user clicks inside of an email, Apple is creating a proxy IP address which tells us there is a click but does not tie back to that individual user.
• Total number of leads and cost per lead will not be impacted.

 

We are staying on top of this development and customizing our client’s email marketing strategies to accommodate. This includes:

• Pausing A/B Testing: Results will be skewed, and so we’ve made the decision to pause A/B testing based on subject lines for the time being.
• Segmentation is Key! Email list segmentation can be based on user behavior or user data. Since we cannot gather accurate data based on if a user opened a campaign or not, we will be talking to you more about segmentation opportunities based on the data you have gathered on your customers.

 

In alignment with segmentation, marketers cannot re-send an email to a list of customers that “did not open X campaign,” since we’re unable to determine who actually opened the email.

You can rely on your email marketing team to review any recommended strategy adjustments and communicate them during your next monthly call. In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to reach out to your Email Marketing Speciality with questions, and do not be alarmed if reporting in your Dashboard is temporarily skewed.

For exceptional contractor marketing solutions, give our number a call: 800-825-7935. iMarket Solutions: Dedicated to Contractor Success!