Apple Mail Privacy - Q&A

Marigold Engage journey reporting offers the capability to analyze device metrics for a specific journey. This includes looking at the number of contacts opening an email in a specific version of Mac (i)OS. Note that the granularity of these metrics may differ moving forward from the moment Apple applies their changes, due to the obfuscated or randomized data that Marigold Engage receives from Apple. The impact is currently being assessed using the beta versions of the operating system, being released to the public.

3. Will there be a workaround to measure opens from Apple users?

There are still aspects of this change that are not yet fully understood (i.e., how Apple will determine what a tracking pixel is versus any other image used in an email, and how this will impact desktop users, for example) as the beta version of the Apple update does not have these features enabled yet. Once Apple makes these features available, we will be testing across our products and will provide further updates.

Remarks:
- Although an email open is the first action that indicates engagement, there are many other metrics that can be used: clicks, website visit, mobile app usage, physical store visit, loyalty points movement, ...
- According to our data, 31,5% of our email opens are linked to Apple devices (29% iPhone, 2,5% iPad) but this also includes Gmail app users & webmail usage with the browser which are not impacted by the Apple Mail Privacy changes.

4. Will Live Content still work for Apple users?

After the Apple Mail Privacy changes take place, IP addresses will be hidden, which are used to detect the contact’s location.

In addition, all remote content downloaded by Mail is routed through multiple proxy servers, preventing the sender from learning your IP address. Rather than sharing the IP address that allows the email sender to learn your location, Apple's proxy network will randomly assign an IP address corresponding to the region the opening device is in. As a result, email senders will only receive generic information rather than information about the behavior of a consumer. Apple will not expose the IP address of their users.

This means that Live Content images based on a contact’s location and/or weather information, might show incorrect data.

Live Content images in general will remain functional.

5. Will an A/B test on subject line still make sense?

Yes. There are three criteria to choose which is the best or winning version of a message:

Click interaction metrics
Revenue generated from these emails using the Shop tracker.
Number of orders generated from the emails using the shop tracker.

The criteria "Number of views" will be less effective but would still make sense as roughly 70% of all current views are not being impacted.

6. Will reactivation campaigns still work?

Reactivation campaigns will still work. However Apple Mail users will only convert on a click once this privacy feature is enabled.

Other conversion signals could also be considered (mobile app usage, website visit, …) but you must be careful here as the idea behind email reactivation campaigns is to reactivate the email address. We don’t want you to start targeting an email address that is not active or even turned into a Spamtrap.

7. Do we know who has this setting enabled?

No, or at least not accurately. Initial testing shows that these opens come from very generic user agents as well as generic IP addresses. You may be able to determine approximately who is using Apple Mail’s Privacy feature, but it will be just that—an approximation.

There are still aspects of this change that are not yet fully understood (i.e. how Apple will determine what a tracking pixel is versus any other image used in an email, and how this will affect desktop users) as the beta version of the Apple update does not have these features enabled yet. Once Apple makes this available, we will be testing across our products and will provide further updates.

Remarks: This impacts only engagement data from recipients who set up their email account in the Apple Mail app and enable privacy protection. For example, if Apple Mail users set up their Gmail, Yahoo, or private domain inbox in Apple Mail and enable Mail Privacy, opens will not be tracked for those recipients when they open messages in the Apple Mail app. Looking at iPhone usage, all kinds of domains are represented.

8. How will this impact our deliverability numbers?

Basically, open rates will be less accurate than before. As roughly 11-13% of email subscribers use Apple Mail, you can expect your email open rates to be off by at least 11-13%.

Note that these updates only affect the Apple Mail app. If subscribers use the Gmail app, Outlook, or any other of the numerous email applications to get their email, this change will not affect them.

Remarks:
- Note that we see a huge adoption difference per region. For example, views in the US are 50% on Apple Devices, in Europe it’s close to 30%.
- The same applies to verticals such as industry or even brands. The impact might be less for some brands compared to others.
- This only impacts Apple Mail users with Privacy Protection enabled (iOS 15)

9. I use Apple Mail on my iPhone for my business email, Gmail and personal email (local provider). Do I understand correctly that Apple preloads all images in all incoming emails, even for Gmail?

Correct. No matter the domain, all emails opened in an Apple client are impacted.

10. Can the solution create a filter to filter out all the Apple clients in the end results of email campaigns?

Currently this is not possible as Apple clients don’t share the client details when emails are opened. We will be investigating options/solutions once Apple iOS15 has been rolled out.

Email client namings for Apple

Regarding email clients for Apple, different namings may be used : Apple (MPP enabled), Apple Mail.
The table below shows how to interpret these differences.

Email Client Name	Apple Mail Privacy Protection	Email through	Domains	Device
Apple (MPP enabled)	activated	iOS 15 using Apple Mail app, with Apple Mail Privacy Protection activated	Known — Apple and others	Unknown — appears as proxy
Apple Mail	not activated	iOS 15 using Apple Mail app, with Apple Mail Privacy Protection not activated	Known — Apple and others	Known — mobile, tablets and desktop
Apple Mail	not applicable	- iOS 15 using another app than Apple Mail - any other iOS version than iOS 15	Known — Apple and others	Known — mobile, tablets and desktop

11. Is it correct that OR (Open Rate) and CTOR (Click To Open Rate) will no longer be accurate, but CTR (Click Through Rate) will still be accurate?

Indeed, OR & CTOR will be less accurate due to the Apple changes. We strongly advise you to start focusing on CTR.

CTR is a metric that is aggregated from the combination of clicks and deliveries/sends. Therefore, this is unaffected by actual open metrics of an email.

12. Open monitoring is/was important in list hygiene and contact list quality management (sunsetting etc). How will those changes impact us? What are your thoughts/advice to maintain high standards for Audience List management after these changes are live?

The impact on the use of sunsetting remains to be seen. Based on the actual implementation of changes that Apple will apply and the absolute numerical impact this may have on the metrics that the solution can gather.

With the information at hand, we can conclude that the process impact can be described as follows. Users on Apple Mail app with Privacy Protection enabled, that are not really engaging and only open now & then, will be moved into the sunsetting procedure and will most likely be faded out of the Audience List if they are not engaging in any other way.

The definition of email engagement may likely change over time from ‘view and click’ to ‘click’ where the timeline in which a customer is considered 'active' will play a fundamental role. In addition to these interaction metrics, there are other channels and metrics that grant a baseline for engagement analysis. Metrics such as clicks, mobile app usage, website visit/logon, physical store visit, purchase history, explicit consent date and many others can still be used to keep consumers in an actively targeted audience.

We currently advise a combination of opens and clicks. For those not engaging for approximately 8 months, you ideally start with a reactivation campaign, so a click is enforced.

The main purpose of sunsetting is limiting communication targeting to engaged consumers to increase and maintain inbox placement, reputation, clicks, conversion & revenue!

13. Will the CDN open time have an impact on the countdown (live content)?

Correct, the countdown timer will have an inaccurate opening datetime.

14. What will be the impact on the Send Time Optimization feature?

Users that are using Apple Mail app with Privacy Protection enabled (iOS 15) will have less opens and can only be assigned an STO profile on clicks or other engagement metrics. This must be evaluated to determine if the solution needs to fine-tune this calculation. Once we’ve completed our final assessment based on the testable beta releases that Apple will bring to the public, we will update this information.

15. What will be the impact on the broader email marketing business?

As we continue to learn more about the impact of this change and enter the next phase of email, there are ways to shift our focus. First, the open rate is not the only email metric that provides an understanding of audience engagement. Click rates and conversion rates continue to be a strong indicator of engagement alongside deeper cohort analysis. Second, testing email content also remains a critical aspect to understand what’s resonating and driving engagement, conversion, and revenue from subscribers.

16. Live data based on open would be broken after the changes are enforced at Apple. Do you know if there are any signs that Apple could enable AMP (which I believe could be a nice work around)?

Apple currently doesn’t support AMP and so far, there are no signs indicating that direction.

General

Impacted products – STO

Users that are using Apple Mail app with Privacy Protection enabled (iOS 15) will have less real opens.

From Engage Version 5.22, iOS15 opens are no longer taken into account for STO.

Impacted procedures – Sunsetting

Users on Apple Mail app with Privacy Protection enabled, that are not really engaging and only open now & then, will be moved into the sunsetting procedure and will most likely be faded out of the Audience List if they are not engaging in any other way.

Nevertheless, senders can look at other KPI’s like clicks, mobile app usage, website visit/logon, physical store visit, buying history, … but also profile metrics like actual consent date, …. to determine if those contacts are still valid to stay in their targeted audience.

The main reason for sunsetting is only targeting engaging users to drive inbox placement, reputation, clicks, conversion & revenue!