iOS 15 Updates and Email Marketing: How to Prepare

Apple came out with a preview to the new iOS 15 features which is going to be released this fall. Among those are two features that could greatly impact the future of email marketing:

1. Mail Privacy Protection

2. Hide My Mail Feature

Mail Privacy Protection essentially prevents email senders from learning information about your mail activity. This privacy feature hides your IP address so senders can’t use this information to connect it to your other activity online or your location. This also means that it will prevent senders from gathering certain metrics and being able to see if you’ve opened your email.

The second feature is the Hide My Email feature which allows users to sign up for email offers with an Apple-generated randomized address instead of the real email address. Apple then forwards emails into the user’s main email account.

The problem this creates for marketers is that it is essentially a burner email address. You can see how this could be problematic when trying to gain quality leads. This may also create deliverability issues since users can delete this new email address easily. The positive is that for users, it will prevent the spread of their email address across the web.

A member of HubSpot’s Product team stated that this might actually increase vs. decrease open rates:

“For the percentage of your audience who use Apple’s mail clients, and who have updated to iOS 15, and who have this Privacy Protection feature enabled, their email might be pre-loaded by Apple. When each of these things happens, the email would appear to have been opened, when in fact, it might not have actually been.”

Although privacy is important, marketers, especially email marketers, need accurate data and analytics to ensure they are sending content and information their subscribers want to see. Without these metrics, it may be a bit harder to do this. Overall, the click rate and conversion rates weigh more heavily on the success of an email campaign.

These changes should not surprise marketers as we are constantly having to adapt and alter strategies. Your email marketing team should be ready. Here are things to do to prepare:

1. Start testing if you haven’t already.

   Testing your open rates now while you still have this data available to you is super important. You can test subject lines, preview text, optimal send times, and days of the week. This ensures you have a plan moving forward and benchmark data to work with.

2. Adjust your workflows.

   Any workflows you currently have set up that are triggered by email opens will no longer be accurate. We suggest adjusting those to a new metric such as clicks or purchases.

3. Watch your deliverability rate.

   Since the new “hide my email” feature may impact your deliverability rate, make sure you collect baseline metrics for this as well. Take this opportunity to make sure your ESP removes hard bounces before the fall.

4. Clean your list.

   Remove those who are unengaged and focus on getting quality leads onto your list. You don’t want just anyone on your email list, and you want to ensure your deliverability is in check.

5. Segment!

   Stop focusing on email opens and start relying on other metrics such as:

   1. Placed Order

   2. Clicked Email

   3. Active on Site

   4. New Subscribers

This will not be the death of email marketing; better yet, it will help us elevate our email marketing strategies. The focus will shift off of open rates and more to your email campaigns’ engagement rates. This means that we need to continue to nail down and develop high-quality content that our audience finds valuable enough to engage with.

If you have any questions about these changes, contact us!