What Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection Means for Email Marketing

Ready or not, mail privacy protection is coming to iOS 15.

The announcement came today, at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).

Katie Skinner, Apple’s Manager of User Privacy Software said in a keynote:

“What you may not realize is that many of these [marketing] emails use invisible pixels to collect information about your mail activity…We think you should be able to choose when to allow this or not. So now, in the Mail app, we’re introducing Mail Privacy Protection”

Mail Privacy Protection was one of many privacy-related features discussed at the WWDC. The App Privacy Report, as an example, shows you how often apps use the access one’s location, photos, camera, microphone, and contacts in the last seven days, and which other domains are contacted.

What this means for email marketers

The brass tax is this: Open rates remain (largely) a vanity metric.