You might have heard about Apple’s upcoming Mail Privacy changes and how they’ll impact email marketing. Perhaps you’ve heard people saying, “The email open rate is dead!” or that Apple Mail Privacy will forever change the landscape of email marketing. And now you’re looking to see what all the fuss is about.

Well, first of all, two pieces of good news:

1. You’ve come to the right place
2. Fundamentally, nothing is changing about what makes email the most effective form of marketing Hopefully, I’ve at least set your mind at ease a little. The truth is, there’s no need to worry. But there are some changes coming to the world of email marketing as a result of Apple’s Privacy updates for iOS 15 and their popular Mail app that you should be aware of. These changes aren’t specific to any email
   marketing provider and will impact you no matter which platform you’re using, so it’s worth taking some time to get familiar with them.

Mail Privacy Protection is an upcoming Apple Mail feature announced in June of 2021 that will prevent email marketers from using invisible pixels to collect information from recipients. The feature will be available for users of Apple’s Mail app for iPhone, iPad, Mac computers, and Apple Watch, allowing them to mask information such as when and where they open an email, what device they used, and any other online activity linked to that device.

In the past, data from an email was loaded only when the recipient opened the email and downloaded the email’s images, which happened automatically in most cases. This data included a pixel, which allowed your email provider to detect that the email was opened, what device was used, and sometimes where the subscriber was located when they opened the email. With Mail Privacy Protection, Apple Mail will preload images and content of emails you send — including the tracking pixel — regardless of if the
recipient actually opened the email or not.  This makes data from these pixels unreliable as a performance metric.

Why Mail Privacy Protection matters for email marketing

Apple Mail is an extremely popular email client

Apple Mail is one of the most popular email clients in use today, largely because it’s the default email application for users of all Apple devices. In 2021, Apple devices accounted for approximately 52 percent of all email opens, according to Litmus.

Mail Privacy Protection will likely be offered as an option to all Apple Mail users shortly after the feature becomes available. It’s still unclear how many users will opt-in to this feature, but people using email marketing tools should be prepared to rely less on email open data. Generally, when users are given the opportunity to opt out of data tracking, they take it. We expect these new privacy features to be as popular as previously released iOS features, like opting out of app data tracking.

Sourced: https://blogs.constantcontact.com/apple-mail-privacy-protection-for-email-marketing/?ic=clm_cus_email_appleprivacyprotection