I0S 15 and the impact on email marketing

New changes to IOS and what it means for marketers!

Apple’s latest iOS 15 update has certainly caused a stir for marketers trying to reach consumers using Apple devices. The new changes include Hide My Email and Privacy Relay, giving consumers the option to limit or prevent data sharing from their devices, masking emails and internet addresses, and hiding unique identifiers for online tracking. This change will make consumer opt-ins more precious than ever, especially for those using Apple email apps. But marketers will do what marketers do best – evolve!

In short, Apple users will now be able to:

• Turn off open tracking
• Hide their IP addresses
• Hide their email addresses

And this will impact:

• The reliability of open rates – They are still relevant but don’t measure campaign success from them
• The accuracy of open times
• The precision of automation
• Stop senders from using invisible pixels to collect open and IP addresses
• A/B testing will be impacted, so the removal of i0s devices from testing is recommended

So how many consumers are impacted by this new update?

58% of email consumers and 90.5% of all mobile users (that use an apple email) will be impacted by the latest update, with at least 90% of those users expected to opt-in to the new privacy settings. Why so much? The latest update will present Apple users with a clear opt-in message after the upload is complete, typically asking, “do you want to protect your email or not”. In the age of privacy-first technology, it is no surprise that so many are predicted to choose this new privacy feature.

Remember, this only impacts consumers using the Apple mail app!

Email marketing with iOS:

It’s not all doom and gloom! The new iOS 15 changes are no doubt changing the marketing landscape for email campaigns moving forward. Here are a few top tips to prepare for a new way of emailing with iOS 15:

1. Segment your data – understand the density of apple users in your database
2. Measure clicks over delivered
3. Track open rates from the previous year to create a post line for future campaigns
4. Segment your data from previous email campaigns – consumers with a better engagement rate are less likely to opt-in to the new privacy settings
5. Rely on clicks for re-engagement campaign tracking
6. Bounce rates are your friends – this will help you measure changes to your campaigns
7. Ensure you have a clear Preference Centre
8. Identify alternative data you will need to bring in, like web data, other customer data – better relevance
9. Maintain email best practices; just because opens are going away is not an excuse to sending crazy as email platforms will likely still measure and filter your email accordingly.

And finally, embrace personalisation! Even though the new update will filter emails to an randomized email created by the Hide My Email feature of iOS 15, a personalised email is far more likely to be engaged with.