Apple's new Mail Privacy Protection feature is forever changing the way you approach and measure your email campaigns.
Following up on the well-received privacy features which limit in-app tracking, the tech giant unveiled their plans to target privacy surrounding email marketing next.
The new feature is set to limit email tracking with the native mail app. This means that Apple mail will mask IP addresses and inhibit senders (email marketers) from seeing whether or not recipients opened their emails.
It will work by pre-loading content—including tracking pixels—before someone even opens the email. To the sender, this will appear as if the email was opened, even if the subscriber never does. What’s more, because Apple will route the email through a proxy server, there will be no information about where or when the subscriber really opened the email.
By disabling the invisible pixels, Apple will also prevent the use of other email marketing features that are based on open-rate, such as open condition in marketing automation and more.
So what is this?
The update will take effect for all Apple Mail users on iOS 15, macOS Monterey and iPadOS 15. If a subscriber uses Apple Mail, the feature will be available starting September 20th.
The option won’t be enabled by default, but if the minuscule 4% opt-in to ad tracking is anything to go by, it seems likely that similar numbers will apply to the Mail Privacy Protection option.
Here’s the opt-in screen:
How Mail Privacy Protection will impact email marketing
1. Open-rate metrics
Open-rate metrics will no longer be reliable for email lists with subscribers using Apple Mail. They will likely increase as Apple Mail returns an open when it pre-loads email content. There are metrics you can still use, such as click rate, double opt-in rate and more .
2. Segmentation by engagement (opens)
Segmentation by opens won't work very well, you won't know when your subscribers really opened the email if they use Apple Mail.
3. Automation triggers
Automations based on opens will need to be rethought and adjusted. Campaigns such as, resend to non-openers, re-engagement, and open condition will be affected as open-rates are no longer reliable. To combat this, marketers should change the way their campaigns behave.
4. Subscriber list
Email open data will no longer serve as a way to gauge email list health and subscriber engagement. There’s no way to know if opens are genuine or not, so this can’t be used reliably to clean up lists. Luckily, emails will only be cached for accounts when the Apple Mail app is active, so it will at least give you a good indication of which accounts are valid and we have solutions to mention later.
How can Dynosend help you?
You don't have to worry about this because this only applies for Apple Mail users, and we have different solutions to help.
1. Clickers location in map
You can see in a map from which countries and regions your subscribers are clicking your emails from instead of just tracking opens, this is more accurate and there is no way for Apple or any other email service to hide the user IP so you can know where your subscribers really are and you can compare between the click and the open location to really know the real from the fake open.
2. Resend to non-clickers
Resending your campaigns to non-openers won't be the same since the emails will be marked as opened, but you can still resend to the non-clickers as we already mentioned that clicks will always remain real and can never be affected by Apple Mail Privacy Protection and it is also a better way to increase your conversion rate.
You can also send confirmation emails from time to time to ask your subscribers to confirm their subscription so this way you'll know your real subscribers.
New features are coming
We are releasing new features that will give you an idea of the fake opens so you can segment them or move them to separate lists with a 90% accuracy.