Beginning with the launch of iOS 15, Apple will open mail for roughly 90% of users who use Apple Mail on their iPhone, iPad or Mac. An estimated 90% of users will opt into this new process. The implications of this new process can be troubling for fundraisers given approximately 30-36% of our audiences use Apple Mail. Users will now be given the option to protect their mail activity which means hiding their IP address and remote information.
The new process will look like something like this:
- An email arrives in the inbox of your device
- That email is sent to a proxy server. This proxy server will open that email and cache all of the contents of the email.
- Each email contains a tracking pixel. When an individual opens their email and views its images on their device, information is recorded about that pixel on the email sending platform. The pixel will also get cached along with the other contents in the proxy server.
- With the new caching system, the pixel will now only show initial opens. It will no longer show any other future interaction with that email’s pixel because it only has the cached version to call from rather than the version provided by your email service provider.
With the new update, any email that comes to your Apple device will automatically be sent to Apple for caching and will register as an open, thus potentially creating a false positive. This will happen regardless of the address type (Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) as long as they are linked to your iOS mail application. In addition, if someone clicks an email, future opens will no longer be recorded with iOS15. Given the standard release date for iOS, we expect that iOS 15 will launch in late September. Because not everyone will upgrade immediately, there will be an initial influx of updates, and then users will slowly upgrade over time.
What information is going to be hidden because of this change?
Because of the way Mail Privacy Protection works, you won’t be able to tell which Apple Mail recipients opened your emails (if at all), the time of open, their geolocation, and which device they use (yep, no more mobile vs. desktop insight). You can, however, still track clicks. An example of how much information will be omitted from your mail data can be seen here:
In the meantime, you can create a list for people currently using Apple devices and segment them out by device as a good start. However, the ability to dynamically add to that group in the future is not likely given that device information (available in the email headers) will be stripped from the email.
What programs should we consider revising?
Some of the potential effects for your Apple Mail audience members who opt into Mail Privacy Protection could include:
- Any audience cohort, segmentation, or targeting based on the last open date will be rendered useless. To elaborate, let’s say your organization sends an email campaign out on Tuesday and then decides to send an additional email to non-opens the following Thursday. With the new Mail Privacy Protection, you could be excluding some false opens from the prior Tuesday. Thus, it will become more difficult to determine which contacts are actually unengaged.
- Automated flows and journeys that rely on someone opening an email will need to be re-designed. For instance, if you’re sending someone down a journey where opening an email more than once sends them to the sales team or member services, you may want to rethink that flow since they might not have actually opened those emails.
- A/B testing subject lines or any other element that relies on opens to determine the winner or automatically send out the winner will not be effective anymore due to the possibility of skewed data.
- Send time optimization will be inaccurate. However, some tools are rumored to be minimally affected in this area, so identifying whether your platform has a workaround for this will be in your organization’s best interest.
- Countdown timers, a commonly used feature in fundraising, may now show outdated times since the cached version may be pulled at sent time rather than open time.
- Localized content such as weather or nearest store location that are reliant on opens or IP addresses also won’t be accurate anymore.
- Monitoring email deliverability and maintaining list hygiene will be much more challenging.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) platforms that utilize email opens in their algorithms for creating customized subject lines may be a bit off with the limited information.
Should we change our segmentations?
Though it would save a lot of pain, we unfortunately can’t segment based just on Apple or iCloud addresses. However, you could try to segment based on device since a large portion of Apple mobile device users will be using the iOS mail application.
For spam traps, you might ask, “wouldn’t a larger suppression group mean we’re likely to hit a spam trap? Normally, yes. However, if the increase in the suppression group is caused by iOS 15, triggering a spam trap is not possible as part of that increase. Spam traps, by definition, are email addresses that are either never used or only used after someone has long left the account. Because these opens are caused by someone physically adding the email account to their device, that email address would no longer qualify as a spam trap.
Will email service providers penalize us for unengaged leads?
This is a possibility. At this point, email service providers incorporate the reading of an email as a metric of engagement, but they also factor in clicks and other actions (such as marking an email “not spam”). There’s no indication that ESPs would change this method of success or disregard opens as part of the iOS 15 changes.
Whether or not an open from Apple’s end constitutes a “read” from within the ESP is currently unknown and may vary based on the ESP. Because the open is originating from the user’s device, we can be confident that the email is authentic, and therefore the risk to the domain reputation is lower regardless of the interaction seen by the ESP.
How do these changes impact our email fundraising?
Many fundraisers use open rate to examine a program and determine how are the donors responding, whether there is fatigue in the file, etc. There is also always a strong focus on revenue. We encourage watching open rates as a secondary metric as we expect them to stabilize going into the end of the year. At that point, we can continue to run open-based testing as we have in the past.
Using past learnings and proven techniques from previous campaigns, we’ll continue to produce emails with a strong emphasis on conversions, and we’ll continue to use powerful subject lines and proven conversion techniques. As long as we don’t adjust the suppressions, we don’t expect a shift in revenue as a result of this change.
Should we reconsider our universal suppression list?
Because we already use website activity as a key engagement metric (no website history in the past year), the other metric to consider would be the click-through rate as part of our engagement strategy. Because the average click rate is a small metric in each campaign, changing the suppression from open rate to click-through would quickly weed out people who actively engage in our email program, and would lead to a sharp decline in revenue. Given that sending to a larger audience doesn’t put our file at risk, we suggest continuing to use the open event and website visits as the primary filters for our universal suppressions.
How can we expand our email engagement metrics?
We recommend these practices:
- Monitor and track revenue for each send.
- Continue to monitor your unique clicks for each email.
- Track website visits, form fills, and other engagements.
- Use a tool such as Everest, Datorama, SparkPost or Einstein to supplement your campaigns and sending strategies. These tools will give you a better idea of how you’re doing with engagement and inbox placement.
- Watch for high number of opens with no other engagements. For instance, if someone has opened every email for the past year, and they haven’t clicked on an email, you may want to consider creating a segment for this type of user for a reactivation campaign to reengage them.
What can we test now as part of this change?
We have a short amount of time before the iOS 15 rollout happens. You may want to consider some testing now to segment out your current lists. Some things to consider testing are:
- Send time. Does your audience respond better at 6 AM or 3 PM?
- Statement vs. question in subject line
- Personalization in subject line
- “From” name and sender address
- Long vs. short emails & subject lines
- Calls to action
- Positive vs. negative message framing
The key takeaway here is we’ll need to monitor our testing campaigns over the next several weeks. Your control group could be used for subject line testing until an open rate baseline can be determined. In addition, automated series will need to be adjusted as needed to deemphasize open rates. Your year-over-year comparisons will differ in open rates, but once we uncover the approximate percentage of increase, that metric could be used to show a comparable open rate. Suppression groups should remain the same, and we’ll continue to monitor campaign performance based on revenue, click-through and opens based on the new open rate.
