How Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection Will Impact You, the User

If you don’t know already, Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection has launched and the setting will limit how marketers track your emails. At first glance, this seems great – data privacy is important. But the impact it has on the quality of your email content may surprise you. Read on to find out why.

Online privacy is a concern for a lot of people. Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection now offers a solution for email.

Email programs include a tiny, invisible image in an email to track recipient email opens and as soon as one clicks to open, the image is downloaded and recorded as an open. Apple’s MPP prevents the tiny image from collecting accurate recipient information by caching the email content whether the reader opens the email or not. This causes skewed results for marketers.

Additionally, Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection will mask IP addresses, the device they used to open the email, and their location at the time.

For marketers, the Privacy Protection will present as:

• An increase in open rates
• A decline in click-to-open rates
• Disruptions to automated email series that are based on email opens
• Incorrect personalisation for emails that are customised based on email opens

As a consumer, you may start to notice a change in the marketing emails you receive. With so much uncertainty around Mail Privacy Protection for marketers, it’s clear that you may feel a sting too. For example:

• Less personalisation: Without being able to track which emails you open, marketers will be less equipped to send you the kind of content you engage with most.
• Irrelevant content: Because marketers won’t know your location, it’s going to be harder to send you customised content based on location.
• Not part of the list: You may be removed from email lists because you don’t click, even though you may open the mails.
• Email repetition: You may receive the same email more than once from one campaign because you didn’t click the first time.
• Unfavoured contact methods: Brands may start using other communication methods to get their marketing campaigns across, including text messages and social media.
• Low email content quality: The quality of your content may drop since some of the data used to give you high content emails won’t be available.

Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection will shake up email marketing – in some good ways, and some inconvenient ones. Know what you’re opting in for when you decide which way you want to go.