Apple Mail Privacy Protection

When will Mail Privacy Protection take effect?

Mail Privacy Protection will roll out on Apple devices in the fall of 2021, along with the release of iOS15 and MacOS Monterey. The expectation is between September and November 2021. Because users do not all install a new update immediately, several months will pass until the effect is properly visible. The fact remains that data on e-mail usage will become partially less reliable from the time of rollout.

How many people are using Apple Mail? How many will enable Privacy?

Ternair is letting all its customers know via an additional newsletter what their approximate current number of Apple Mail e-mail users is. To give you a rough idea of the impact: if 85% of Apple users are expected to choose the privacy option and on your lists an average of 52% use Apple Mail, which is the current average in the U.S., that's about 44% of your total list. So you can calculate for yourself how big the share on your list will be.

Follow-ups for your email marketing

In our first article on this topic, we already indicated which parts of your email marketing you should start reviewing. As before, email marketing obviously remains a powerful tool for reaching your target audience and nothing will change. Ternair makes sure that everything continues to work technically. However, there are some things to consider when using and evaluating your email data. Regardless of which software you use to send e-mailings, these apply to everyone.Below we list the most important changes. We indicate what you need to do because of the impact and how we can help you with that. Again, even with Apple's privacy changes, email marketing will continue to function as it did before. You do get back less reliable data on some of the results.

1. Op Opens-based statistics are becoming unreliable

Open rates will likely increase, but unfortunately are no longer reliable. Because Apple downloads all email data regardless of whether a user actually opened an email, your opening rates become unreliable. The percentages are not the actual Opens by users.

2. CTO becomes unreliable, CTR remains reliable

The Click to Open rate (CTO) is the number of unique clicks divided by the number of unique Opens. A favorite statistic for email marketers to measure email effectiveness among users who actually saw the email. Since unique Opens is a component of this ratio, the CTO is likely to drop significantly. It looks like there were many more Opens compared to the number of Clicks. In contrast, there will be no impact on the CTR. This refers to unique clicks and is calculated by dividing by the number of recipients of the email and that remains the same. So the CTR is and will remain a good way to assess which campaigns are doing well.

3. Automations based on Openrate are becoming less reliable

Some email marketing campaigns are started based on email opening. These automations are usually no longer usable, as they become unreliable for some of the recipients, a few examples:

• Automated emails based on (non-)-openers

Apple Mail recipients with Mail Privacy will no longer receive an automatic resend based on non-opening. After all, it appears that they open all emails. Conversely, they may receive a follow-up email based on their 'Open' even though they did not actually open the email. That doesn't really make for an optimal customer experience. So automated emails with Opens as a condition become largely unusable.

• Segmentation with email data

Some email marketers use the number of Opens from email data to create their segments of 'engaged' or 'less engaged' prospects and customers. As Open rates become unreliable, they must be removed from the segmentation criteria. Fortunately, clicks, orders, Web behavior and other metrics remain available as usual, but you may need to activate or supplement them.

• A/B topic testing

Marketers love to test. A/B subject line testing typically involves sending two versions of an e-mail with two different subject lines to a small portion of the e-mail list. Then the subject line that generates a higher Open Rate is chosen as the winner. The rest of the list automatically receives the version with the winning subject line. The results of A/B testing for subject lines based on Opens become unreliable. Excluding all Apple devices in your data could be an option, but it gives a one-sided sample of your target audience and a lot of management and risk of separate test lists. The question is also whether the distinction can still be made properly in your data if Apple also starts masking device information or sends unreliable information about it back to the sender. Finally, it is also not a structural solution, as other e-mail programs are expected to follow Apple's example.

4. Location, opening time and device information are no longer available

As Apple goes to great lengths to improve their Intelligent Tracking Prevention, marketers will no longer receive information about an email user's location or device. For example, if you have automation based on location or device type, it becomes unusable for Apple users with privacy settings. This is partly because Apple replaces the user's real IP address with a fake address.

5. Personalization remains the same, possibly some tweaking required

E-mail personalization, such as including names or dynamic content based on what a reader clicked on, remains unaffected. Should you have advanced personalization based on Opens it will no longer work reliably. However, in most cases personalization will be automated based on click and purchase behavior .

6. E-mail marketing remains the highest-yielding channel

E-mail marketing in general has been and continues to be the most successful channel for engaging prospects, driving sales, and for service and feedback. The Openrate now gives marketers a better picture of what prospects and customers do and want, but it is not an end in itself. Compare it to the offline world where an attentive salesperson in a store also sees what items a customer is looking at, so he or she can better assess what the customer is helped with, but it is not necessary.In the next section, we outline the steps you can take and how we can help you with that step by step.

Step plan: make your email marketing 'Apple Privacy proof'

This is the time to do a check-up. Can't get around to it yourself or don't know how? We'll outline step-by-step how Ternair can help you.The six steps you can take to be successful with email marketing now and in the future

1. Adjust KPIs

Adjust the following metrics in the reports and add new ones:

• Delete Openrate and CTO from your internal reports

We will, of course, continue to show Openrate in Ternair Campaign. But no longer use these in your own reports to assess results. While you can create a separate "Apple list," think carefully about whether that is useful. The list will rarely be optimal. It is even questionable whether you can compile it properly, as information about devices used will also become unreliable. Moreover, it requires a lot of management on multiple lists, with the danger that your opt-in administration will no longer be correct. It is also expected that sooner or later other tech companies will follow Apple's example. So we recommend taking structural measures.Your Ternair consultant can help you customize reports from the datamarts. And where to find email device and client information.

• Add Conversion Rate

You can measure the percentage of email recipients who take your desired action, such as making a purchase or downloading, all the way through by tracking the Ternair ID (TID) all the way to the thank you page. This way you will be measuring actual conversions from email, giving you an even more reliable KPI.Your consultant can advise you on the best way for you to set up the measurement to your landing page or web shop via the TID.

• Add or more explicitly assess the Unsubscribe Rate in your reporting

If you want to continue to measure the engagement of your email audience on campaigns, then pay more explicit attention to the Unsubscribe Rate. The percentage of users who unsubscribe from your list after emailings. Users' inboxes are becoming increasingly crowded. They are more likely to unsubscribe from too many, too irrelevant emails. Make sure you include this signal structurally in the assessment of campaigns.Your consultant can help you adjust, for example, reports from the datamarts, calculate benchmarks or average KPIs. Or in using the Ternair API to read this data in your reporting software.

• Include list growth rate in your monthly reporting

Monthly assess the number of subscribers and unsubscribers, and thus the growth of your email list. You can still measure list engagement through the number of clicks in emails. So you can make a connection between any engagement and unsubscribing behavior of users and thus form a picture of the (in)activity of your email subscribers. This gives you insight into how and at what moments you could influence this with retention campaigns, such as a gift or discount at the right moment. Or at least by paying attention to email users in the 'inactivity' danger zone.Most customers have the option in their Ternair portal to view the 'statistics On and Off' numbers of their lists in Interact. You can set the desired reporting period here. Do you not yet have this functionality in your configuration? Please contact Ternair Support.

2. Adjust Automation

For all automated emails, make sure to adjust campaigns that are started based on Opens. Instead, use:

• Clicks

• Time (e.g., provisionally send email 2 a week after email 1)

• Website behavior (real-time)

• Download or purchase behavior

Think, for example, about launching real-time email campaigns in response to website behavior, via webhook placement. Or using data from public sources. For example, you can trigger emails based on the current weather in a particular location. Also, possibilities for automatic enrichment of your own email list with freely accessible data is often still unused.Your consultant can help you adapt automations. We can also suggest alternatives. Is the above example not relevant to you? Use your consultant's data knowledge to make automations and enrichments using public data readily available.

3. List cleaning (urgent)

At the time of writing (August 2021), the Apple update has not yet been rolled out. After the update, you will no longer be able to properly determine if your emails are opened. This will give you less visibility into your list hygiene. Because spam filters are getting stricter, it is better to clean up your list of inactive email users in time.We have a Webinar on engagement on your newsletter ready for you. Because looking at Opens is still important in this, you should do this before the Apple update in the fall. Of course, we can help you with this as well. We also have a Webinar on email deliverability to make sure your email stays out of spam filters.

4. Customer Segments Update

We recommend removing the Open condition from customer segment calculations everywhere. Should your Engagement segments become very small as a result, consider what ratios you could add to them. If you need help with this, call in your consultant.Your consultant will know what conditions play an important role with customers in determining "engagement" of leads and customers.

5. A/B testing customization

You can customize your A/B testing in several ways. You can try putting together a non-Apple Mail list as a test group and continue doing your A/B testing with it in the same way. The question is whether your list is and remains representative enough, and-as indicated earlier in this article-it requires a lot of management, risk and is probably not sustainable in the long run.You can also change your existing A/B tests to result determination based on Clicks. You then look at the number of Clicks for the winner. It is also a more reliable indication, because the 'clickbait' of the Subject Line -the attraction to click on it ultimately does not show the true relevance of the email. It's just what you want to base success on. By the way, it's worth going through best practices regarding attractive Subject Lines and Sender Names with your (marketing) team again. A lot of testing has already been done with these, and refreshing this knowledge is of course your first win.In Ternair Campaign, you can easily choose yourself when setting up on the basis of which the winner of an A/B test will be determined. Watch our Webinar on A/B testing.

6. Look for new channels that can be deployed quickly

Aside from your great email channel, there are of course other channels that you may now be more aware of. They are easy to link to the output of Ternair Campaign and sometimes even already available by default in Ternair output.As an example, here are the following two channels:

• Add SMS as a channel

Standardly available in Campaign: the channel is often underestimated or people find it scary to use. It is often thought to be too personal a channel or outdated. But make no mistake about the enormous impact you can have with this channel, provided of course that it is highly relevant (personalized) and the data is enriched with 06 numbers. Even small numbers give quick results. Forget bulk, automation works for you. For example, why not approach the retention campaign mentioned earlier in this article on inactive email users via the SMS channel. A flower, a hefty retention discount, how personal do you want it? The enormous attention value and conversion will surprise you!The SMS channel is easily activated in Ternair Campaign at the Output blocks, see the Video on outbound channel SMS

• Add Web Push notifications as a channel

Web push notifications or Web push notifications are messages that slide into the top right or bottom right corner of a desktop screen, depending on the operating system. On your mobile, they appear as app push notifications. Web push notifications you receive when your browser is open, no matter what website you are on.Web push notifications work on any computer or laptop with a browser. Not every mobile device can receive them. Android mobile devices support mobile Web push notifications for users using Chrome, Firefox and Opera. Apple has not yet reached that point. The experience is that Web push notifications are activated mostly on desktop.Any organization with a Web site can send Web push notifications. You install code from a Web push service on your Web site to enable them. No app is required. For users, clicking or tapping on a Web push notification takes them to the Web page (URL) you set up. Web push notifications are a permission-based marketing channel. Before users receive a Web push, they must sign up to receive it. The user's Web browser displays a sign-up pop-up in the upper left corner of desktops. The process and timing are configurable by you as the sender.Ternair will soon integrate a Web Push service as a channel into Output Blocks, making it possible to use it through Campaign directly. Currently, the option is Beta-tested with some customers and the first results are good. We already wrote it in our first article on this topic: we can't make the Apple measures more fun, but making your marketing (automation) easier based on data is in our DNA. Always adapted to customers' specific needs, because the impact will be different for everyone. Email marketing continues to evolve and ultimately only gets better from adjustments. It is the channel that has long and successfully stood the test of time, amid online channels that have risen and fallen in popularity. Probably because of its versatile uses and because relevance to recipients has always been the focus. This is precisely why it has been an effective customer channel for so long.