Apple has announced that the new iOS 15 update will be available on all Apple mobile devices on September 20. With this update, an important change is being made. This is because the user will see a selection screen where “Mail Privacy Protection” can be turned on or off. This update has a significant impact on the email channel; on the accuracy of the statistics as well as deliverability, lead scoring and the structure of campaigns. In addition, we expect this update to also be active for the desktop version of iOS in the long run. Enough reasons to list the consequences and possibilities.
Given the tone of the selection screen (“protection”), it is expected that the vast majority of users (estimated over 95%) will choose to enable Mail Privacy Protection. This means that all emails are downloaded the moment Apple Mail App starts, including the opening pixel. This opening pixel is important because it is used by ESPs to determine whether the user has opened an email. As a result of the update, the opening statistics for all Apple Mail users will be distorted. This is because in many cases an opening will be registered because the opening pixel has already been downloaded, while the user has not opened the mail.
For a detailed technical description of this, we would like to refer to Litmus (market leader in email testing).
The take away from the article above is that approximately 75% of the emails that arrive in Apple Mail are expected to return an opening, regardless of whether the mails are actually opened or not. Apple mail (and its various variants on desktop, mobile and tablet) is estimated to be used by around 45-50% of recipients as mail clients.
Slowly but surely, more and more iOS users will install this update. Currently, we can detect from ESPs what kind of operating system they are being opened, but that does not mean that they also use Apple Mail. This is because even on iOS, someone can choose to open their mail on hotmail.com or in the Gmail app.
The fact that a number of users will open mails in different mail clients causes even more noise on the line. The result is that the opening statistics give a distorted picture and are much higher than they will be in practice. Because the other mail clients still provide correct information, A/B tests on subjectline, for example, can still be done. However, we can no longer compare the results with opening statistics from the past.
In short: we don't have to completely write off the opening statistics as a valuable measurement point yet, but the click and conversion are becoming more important and reliable to determine the success of a mailing.
A number of our customers run so-called “reminder campaigns”, which determine whether an additional email should be sent out based on an opening. Since this measurement method is no longer accurate after the update has been implemented, it is wise to make a trade-off between the various options:
To put the whole thing into perspective, the average benchmark for opening is around 15-25% and the benchmark for click is around 3%. Fortunately, our customers generally report much higher click rates (rather around 5-10%, depending on the campaign). If we assume 20% opening and around 8% click, this means that 12% of recipients will receive a reminder mail incorrectly. Since this can get into a user's irritation zone quite quickly, we recommend that you let the campaigns run on opening and not converting them to clicks.
Deliverability is about whether or not to 'arrive' properly in recipients' mailboxes and is currently heavily dependent on opening statistics. Gmail, for example, looks at how many emails from a sending party are opened and if that is not enough, the system determines that these emails end up in the Spam folder. If a lot of spam complaints are also reported, emails may no longer reach the inbox at all and are already stopped at the digital gate. To prevent this, the vast majority of our customers use segments that exclude inactive recipients from newsletters and campaigns. Inactivity is determined here if no opening or clicking has occurred within an x number of months (usually about 4 months, depending on the mail pressure).
The challenge here is that, among iOS users, we can no longer see whether they are active based on opening. If we don't make any changes to this, the part of iOS users that don't open (and is therefore inactive) will continue to receive emails. This may have the possible effect that deliverability will suffer. However, it is expected that the receiving mail servers/spam filters will also have to take into account the loss of this measurement point. A possible advantage of this is that it will be less stringent on non-opening. For now, however, this is still an assumption. The coming period should show what the actual effects will be on deliverability. We will keep a finger on the pulse here so that deliverability does not suffer.
A number of our customers use Lead Scoring mechanisms to email more relevant. This setup is also usually partly based on opening, which means that this will also produce unreliable results. Our advice is to convert the Lead Scoring models and omit the openings. The scoring model here then becomes slightly thinner in terms of absolute numbers, but much stronger in terms of relevance.
In addition, it could be chosen to base the mail frequency on the click-through rate. You can then choose to email someone who hasn't opened in the past month only once a week based on that. Someone who opens once a week could email you 3 times a week. This way, you can optimally match the experience of your customers and prospects and at the same time maintain deliverability.
To indicate a certain degree of urgency, timers are regularly used in e-mails. The current technique that is often used for this is based on a PHP script that compares the current time with the end time. This technique only generates an image when the mail is opened, so that the remaining time is correctly displayed. However, the iOS15 update throws a spanner in the works here too.
As soon as the application is open, all mails are automatically downloaded directly to its own cache and only when the user opens the mail is the image displayed. The timers will therefore lag behind the devices where Mail Protection Privacy is enabled. Our advice here is to be cautious about using the timer from September 20. We'll update our customers about this as soon as we know more and we've explored the alternatives.
Relevance is incredibly important within the email channel and this update forces email marketers to email even more relevant. To keep reaching users' inboxes and thus maintaining deliverability, we only have the click as a truly reliable metric for determining activity. In addition, the more relevant the mail, the greater the chance that a click will follow.
In addition, we will need to develop new indicators to continue to measure and optimize the performance of newsletters and campaigns. Behind the scenes, we are working hard on this and we hope to be able to share more about this in the near future.
Do you have questions about this blog or want to know more? We would love to talk to you about the consequences of this update and the methods we can use to make your mail strategy more relevant.
