When Apple announced updates to its privacy practices with the release of iOS 15 in June, marketers began expressing legitimate concerns over what this would mean. When the news first broke, our General Counsel and Chief Data Ethics Officer John Story published an insightful blog post, and our Chief Product Officer Chris Lanaux also shared his thoughts on both the challenges and opportunities that Apple’s announcement presents for brands.

Now that a few months have passed since Apple made the initial announcement, how has the marketing industry—and its MarTech partners like us—adjusted?

Without question, Apple is changing the game in terms of user privacy and forcing marketers to be better and more relevant for their end-consumers. As marketers, we remember the introduction of GDPR in 2018; it was a clear shift in how we managed data and preferences. Most chose to err on the side of caution, some reducing addressable databases significantly. That was scary, but we’re better for it. The more we lean into data privacy and security the more trusted we become as marketers. We expect that this is just the beginning of how the privacy landscape will change and marketers will need to adapt. Acoustic is taking the perspective of: “Workarounds aren’t compatible with ethics.” In other words, if we aim to operate ethically – as we do and believe all companies should – then we can’t try to cheat the system. Instead, we must come up with new ways to innovate within the guardrails provided.  

Now that we’ve tested how this will affect our Acoustic Campaign platform in the immediate term, here are some observations and actions to take in preparation for this change.

What’s changing, and how can you cope?

Because of this lack of clarity around recipient action, I’ve outlined below the areas of the platform affected as well as what to do to prepare and adapt to these changes.

• Knowing someone opened your email becomes a relic. When users download iOS 15, Apple Mail will serve them a pop-up upon opening asking whether they would like to “Protect Mail activity” or “Don’t protect Mail activity.” Based on the way Apple is presenting the choices to the user, we expect the overwhelming majority to select “Protect Mail activity.” Who wouldn’t want to be more protected? Technically what this means is that the Apple Mail app will auto load Images and CSS when it receives your email. On our end as marketers, because it looks like both assets are loaded, we won’t be able to identify if someone actually opened an email. All emails will look like the recipient opened them. In addition to measuring a campaign by opens, as marketers, we also use behavioral retargeting based on open data.
• Open rates will be higher than normal. If you think about what the goal of the email is, it’s not merely the open you should be tracking. I like to think of email as the vehicle to the destination. Ultimately, you want the user to engage with your brand, take an action, or make a purchase. Those are the metrics you should be measuring to understand the true success of a campaign. Some customers have asked if they should filter these recipients from reports. My response? It’s an ever-moving target and time will be better spent adapting and educating your broader organization, and ultimately optimizing your marketing efforts to focus on “better,” owned metrics.
• Behavioral retargeting based on opens becomes less accurate.
  • Automated behavior tracking or email behavior in queries: This is significant if you use automated behavior tracking, the feature that tracks the last open, last click, and last sent date of a user in database fields. It’s also relevant if you use email open behavior within queries or programs. Most often this data is used to filter user engagement or retarget based on behavior. Suggested action: change those queries that rely on opens and switch them to “clicked.”
  • In the evolving marketing landscape, email is only a single channel. Incorporating contextual data such as visits to categories on the website, transactional data, and survey responses as part of your retargeting efforts takes the entire customer journey into account, not just what’s happening in a single channel. Employing a multi-channel strategy beyond email is critical. For example, a recent trend in retail is collecting a combined opt-in for email and SMS at the same time. If we take one thing away from these privacy changes, this is the most important: evolve your marketing for the better. If you aren’t using web tracking, web analytic integrations via Exchange, relational tables for transactional data, or survey connector, you should check them out right away. Other features to consider include:
    • A/B Testing: Today, you can use A/B testing to test subject lines or creative. Prioritize “the winner” to boost overall ROI of a campaign. You can use open rate as a determining factor for the winner. It’s recommended moving forward that you use either clicks or conversions as the determining factor.
    • Send time optimization: Send time optimization aggregates the collective open behavior of a user for when they are most likely to open a message. If no opens have been recorded, the message is sent at a scheduled time. Now, with Apple Mail app loading images and CSS upon receipt, you will see the open time of these recipients showing as the same as send time. The result will be that send time optimization still works with those that aren’t opening in Apple Mail, and the remainder will be sent near scheduled time.

What can you do now to assess the presumed influence of these impending changes, expected this fall?

Don’t fret: Acoustic has many tools to help you.

Step 1: Determine what percentage of your audience is engaging on Apple Mail; this can be done within Campaign using Email Insights (powered by Litmus).

Step 2: Run an analytic campaign on an email that goes to your widest audience; this will provide a directionally accurate assessment of how you can expect your stats to change.

Step 3: Periodically create new tests on a quarterly basis to assess the shift, particularly after the changes go into effect.

We’ve seen an upward trend in Apple Mail usage over the last several years, but on a quarter-by-quarter basis, we see small, incremental shifts. If you’re looking for even more detailed reporting specifically on Apple devices, Litmus offers an “Apple Audience report.”

Above all: remain calm and think of this shift as an opportunity to further leverage and act upon “owned” interactions and engagement.

Contact your Client Success Director if you’d like to explore more on how to implement some of the Campaign features and/or partnerships that will help to ease the change that iOS 15 will bring.