How Apple’s iOS 15 Privacy Update Could Impact Your Email Marketing: Plus 5 Tips to Help You Stay Ahead

As Apple's iOS 15 update rolls out, it's time to take stock of how this change may impact your email marketing. The update was officially released on September 20, and while it initially had email marketing professionals up in arms with news of new privacy features, has it had the shocking impact that had so many worried?

The Latest Regarding Apple's iOS 15 Privacy Update

While Apple's iOS 15 update includes several exciting features, one that had many marketing teams a bit worried was the updated Mail Privacy Protection.

According to Apple, this update would effectively stop senders from knowing whether an email was opened and keep users' other email activities private.

When turned on, Apple's iOS Privacy update allows users to hide their IP address so that senders cannot link it to other online activities or otherwise determine the user's location.

Source: Litmus

This had marketers worried about the state of their current email marketing practices, as this information can be used to gather information on email open rates.

Sure, while marketing teams do rely heavily on this information to help them target their promotions and campaigns, this update doesn't mean the end-all of your email marketing efforts - not by a long shot.

Many tips can help you stay ahead of the curve and continue to increase your email marketing success!

5 Tips to Help You Stay Head of Apple's iOS Privacy Update

While marketers do have valid reasons to be concerned about the privacy update that enables users to block data points that have become essential to most digital marketing campaigns, there are several methods available to marketing teams to ensure that they aren't losing out on the information and data that can help them grow their business.

Here are five simple tips to help you stay ahead of Apple's iOS 15 Privacy Update:

1. Increase Focus on Tracking Click-Through Rates over Email Delivery Rates

Email delivery rates can be an indicator of a company's success. But it's not the only thing that matters.

Instead of focusing your attention on email delivery rates, you can track an email campaign's effectiveness by focusing on click-through rates. A good email campaign will have a call to action that encourages readers to move from the email to a landing page via an embedded link.

When readers click that link, it results in a click-through to the said landing page. In the following email example, each of the highlighted sections is a clickable link that will take the reader to a specific landing page on the client's website:

Source: Really Good Emails

When a user clicks on these links, it will ping your email marketing platform and record the click-through as a success. This is important to know so that you can measure the success of your email campaign. You can also use this data to gain insight into what users are interested in and what content they want to see more of.

2. Pay Attention to Your Website Traffic and Sessions

Email is still the most effective way of getting your message to the right audience, but this doesn't mean it's the only way. The digital world is changing, and the way that we communicate is changing with it.

It's important to remember that while email is helping you reach your audience, it's only a means of communication. For most email campaigns, the goal is to get users to your website.

That means you want to pay careful attention to your website traffic and session metrics, such as numbers of website visitors, time spent on your website, and the types of pages they're visiting.

Having a clear understanding of your website traffic can help you better understand your audience, the type of content they prefer, and what exactly they are looking for. This knowledge can help you improve the success of your email marketing efforts by providing readers with the information they want to receive, and you won't have to rely on an open rate to tell you whether or not you're doing things correctly.

3. Monitor Form Submissions

Form submissions are another excellent way to track user activity without knowing whether an email was open or not.

Whether the form was included in the email campaign or found on a landing page on your website, you'll receive a notification that they submitted the form when a user fills it out.

From there, you can analyze the data to see how users interacted with your content. You can use this information to determine then if any changes need to be made to the form to better capture the data you need to measure and improve your email marketing efforts.

4. Track Your Content Engagement Metrics

If you're using your email campaigns to help share the content that you have created and shared on your website, then you can determine the success of an email campaign by carefully monitoring various content engagement metrics, including:

• Comments
• Likes
• Shares
• Unique pageviews
• Click-throughs on CTA's, etc.

Each of these pieces of information will indicate whether or not your audience is interested in the content you're sharing and how well it's performing. If your email campaign is successful, you'll also see that these metrics will increase to reflect your success.

5. Amp Up Your Email Personalization Tactics

Finally, one reason so many consumers are eager for Apple's iOS 15 Privacy update is simply that they don't feel as if brands care about their data privacy or them as individuals.

Email personalization has been a best practice for digital marketers for years, and with so much uncertainty in the world, can you really be all that surprised that your audience wants additional privacy?

Instead of writing off email marketing entirely, show your users that you care about them and their privacy needs! Amp up your email personalization tactics by improving user control over the information they receive from you.

By giving your audience more control over their data, you can make them more receptive to your emails and other marketing messages and help build a more trusting, loyal bond between you and each member of your audience.

Get Ahead with Hushly

At Hushly, we believe that every user deserves a unique experience on the web.

That's why we built our suite of marketing tools to not only help you make the most of the information you can collect, but ensure that your clients feel more confident in your brand.

Curious how we can help maximize your marketing efforts? Contact us today for a personalized demo!

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