Sales and marketing professionals today live and breathe data. This is especially true of us here at Marketing Essentials. Everything we do is measured, tested and adjusted continually to optimize our clients’ sales and marketing efforts.
This is doubly true for email marketing. And this is why Apple Mail’s new privacy features are a big deal for the marketing world.
No More Tracking Data for Opens and (Some) Click-Throughs
Apple recently announced a new Mail Privacy Protection feature that it will be rolling out this fall with iOS 15. The feature essentially prevents outside parties from collecting any data about an email after it’s been sent. From Apple’s press release:
In the (Apple) Mail app, Mail Privacy Protection stops senders from using invisible pixels to collect information about the user. The new feature helps users prevent senders from knowing when they open an email and masks their IP address so it can’t be linked to other online activity or used to determine their location.
While this is a great feature for those seeking to collect this data for nefarious purposes, the truth is that marketers tend to use this information in order to provide more useful communications to their leads and customers. However, there is no way to separate those who use invisible pixel tracking for a person’s benefit vs. detriment.
However, for the time being, behavior that is tracked through custom links embedded within the email can still be used to monitor some activity.
What Your Contacts Will See
In the fall, Apple eMail addresses you’re sending to will get an opt-in feature that requires users to select it to activate the privacy settings. While this opt-in requires the user to take action, the wording on the prompt is pretty compelling (see below). After all, we all want to protect our data and privacy, right?
What This Means for Marketers
Apple’s new Mail Privacy Protection feature is just the tip of the iceberg. Privacy protection is becoming an increasingly important issue for consumers, and big tech is listening.
We expect this trend to continue in the coming months and next few years. The biggest impacts in the industry may be felt by advertisers who rely on tracking ad clicks through email in order to generate revenue.
Marketers will still have access to Google Analytics, HubSpot reporting, unsubscribe rates and other metrics that help us adapt our digital marketing efforts to better suit the needs and wants of our audience. However, targeted marketing is likely to get more difficult as this rolls out and other new privacy rules follow suit.
Email Marketing that Sizzles
Our email marketing experts can help your team create emails that capture attention, build relationships and generate revenue. Discover more about our approach to email marketing.
