The Effect of Apple’s iOS 15 on Email Metrics

With another clear step in the direction of more consumer privacy, Apple released iOS 15 with further data protection for users. The most notable ramification of this update is the change to email open tracking.

As many marketers use open rate as a baseline to gauge the effectiveness of an email, this update will skew those results. Not all is lost – marketers will simply have to rely on other metrics to check out email effectiveness, similarly to how the SEO world navigated Google’s announcement of Core Web Vitals changing.

 

So, What Exactly is Happening with iOS 15?

New privacy features are being offered to users. These include:

1. Mail Privacy Protection: Users will be able to opt-in to mail privacy settings to hide their IP addresses and block third parties from tracking email opens.
2. iCloud+: Further privacy protection is available to paid iCloud+ users. These users can choose to monitor websites with whom they’re sharing information, block third parties from tracking their website visits on Safari, and even hide their email addresses.

 

What Do These Changes Mean for Marketers?

1. Mail Privacy Protection: This feature will essentially “preload” emails, so the open rate will look better than it actually is. Furthermore, any workflows or categorizations using open rate will be inaccurate: users who haven’t actually opened the emails will be sent down a workflow as if they had; and users who would have previously been qualified as “unengaged” will not be marked, as this feature will show them as having opened emails even though they have not.
2. iCloud+: As this is a paid feature, it’s effect will be predictably less widespread than the Mail Privacy Protection, though it does mean geographic data from email opens will be less specific than in the past.

 

Who is Affected?

These updates will only affect users who have Apple Mail.

It is important to note, however, that even users who set up their Apple Mail account but don’t operate out of it will be affected; i.e., even if a contact fully operates out of the Gmail app, as long as he set up his Apple Mail at one point, it will preload the emails and misrepresent the email opens for that contact.

 

How Will the Effectiveness of an Email Campaign Be Measured Without Open Rate?

Clickthrough rate will become even more important with this iOS 15 update. Other metrics will have to be relied upon more heavily as well, such as the Delivered, Unsubscribed, and Audience Growth rates.

As marketers will not be able to validate how many users are actually opening an email, it will become more important to track how many emails are successfully delivered and how many users click through the email.

Looking at users that unsubscribe from an email, or how quickly the audience is growing over time – even site logins, if applicable – will also become more of a standard to measure the results and effectiveness of email strategy, specifically regarding audience retention and growth.

 

How are Email Management Platforms Responding?

Constant Contact: Clickthrough rate will now be calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the number of delivered emails, instead of the number of opened emails. Constant Contact is also in the process of updating how email marketing engagement is calculated, and is planning to remove open rate data from that calculation in the future.

Mailchimp: Mailchimp recommends focusing on click and purchase data in lieu of open rate metrics. Mailchimp has also confirmed that they have made changes to how contact ratings are calculated on the backend, so marketers can continue to utilize “email marketing engagement” categories as a segmentation tool or a Customer Journey trigger.

Hubspot: Hubspot has this checklist of what to audit based on the Apple iOS 15 update, mainly focusing on checking your workflows, lists, and reports to replace anything triggered off of open rate with clickthrough rate. Hubspot has not yet released how they will be updating how they qualify “unengaged” contacts to account for the change with open rate metrics.

Klaviyo: Klaviyo is working on a new way to segment out machine-driven email opens in the calculation of open rate. In the meantime, marketers should rely on clickthrough rate, and/or segment out Apple Mail opens within the prebuilt “Email Opens by Email Client” report. Klaviyo is also giving marketers the choice to change their revenue attribution calculation to be click-only and therefore avoid overinflation and misleading attributions from skewed open rate data.

 

What Steps Should Be Taken Now?

Before iOS 15 hits widespread adoption, email marketers should categorize “unengaged” contacts with a tag or via another distinguishable factor beyond open rate metrics.

Other metrics besides open rate should also be set to define the Lifetime Value of a contact now, so those metrics can be pulled in the future to categorize contacts accurately for high and low lifetime value.

Marketers should audit all lists, workflows, and reports in their email CRM to make sure any triggers or settings revolving around open rate are updated as soon as possible.

Furthermore, marketers should consider other tactics beyond email communication – like SMS. With SMS, open rate isn’t an issue, and SMS messages can add a new, personalized way to engage with contacts.

 

Navigating changes and updates to the world of marketing isn’t exactly a new concept in today’s age. As the world moves forward, marketers must be ready to pivot and adapt.