On September 20, 2021, Apple rolled out Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) for their mail app on iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS Monterey devices. Since then, the Omeda team has been testing Mail Privacy Protection and keeping a close eye on email data to determine how total open rates would be affected. In January, we released our analysis showing the impact of MPP after three months. Now, six months later, we have an updated picture of MPP’s impact.
First, two aspects of magazine publishing that will take it (further) into areas not traditionally occupied by the industry.
To review, Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) stops email senders – like Omeda – from using invisible tracking pixels to collect information about the user. When Mail Privacy Protection is enabled, Apple’s proxy servers will download a pixel when the application is opened and the mailbox is updated. This pixel download then indicates to Email Service Providers (ESPs) like Omeda that the email has been opened. This new feature helps users prevent email senders from knowing when they open an email. It also masks their IP address so it can’t be linked to other online activities or used to determine their location. If a user were to turn on this feature, we can no longer accurately show an “open” from someone who is using the Apple Mail App to view emails. In fact, initial tests showed the possibility of open rate inflation.
Our initial tests before the wide rollout of MPP showed that open rates were inflated for clients with recipients using Apple Mail on an iOS device that has been updated to iOS 15 and have opted-in to the Mail Privacy Protection feature. For the full details and findings from our initial tests, read this blog.
Now that Apple’s MPP has been up and running for six months, we wanted to see if the results we saw in our analysis from three months ago still holds true, or if the picture has changed. Previously, we analyzed 60 days of email data from before the rollout of MPP to 60 days of data after the rollout. This time, we decided to look at an even earlier time period (5/19/21 – 7/18/21) to confirm our “before” data was reliable, and we also pulled two new “after” time periods (11/27/21 – 1/26/22 & 2/1/22 – 3/3/22) to see how the open rate data was trending.
A note on email volume: These ranges include approximately 80,000 deployments both before and after the introduction of Apple’s MPP, and about two billion emails sent during both timeframes. At these high volumes, we’re able to more accurately identify trends and understand the full impact of MPP. The most relevant data points in the chart above are the unique and total open rates. When comparing the “before” data to our most recent “after” time periods, we found that both the total and unique opens rates have nearly doubled. After three months, we were seeing modest open rate increases of 4-5 percentage points. But now, after six months, we are seeing total open rates up nearly 18 points (22.6% to 40.5%), and unique open rates up nearly 14 points (15.2% to 29.0%).
We expected to see open rates rising as a result of MPP and for open rate data to become more distorted over time. However, we were surprised to see such a large increase over the last three months. This likely indicates that many more recipients have upgraded their devices to iOS 15 and have opted into MPP, and that the MPP adoption rate is continuing to increase. The large increase could also indicate our clients are still heavily relying on open rate to measure engagement and target their audience. Now more than ever, open rates can’t be trusted, and any data – such as click through rate (CTR) – that utilizes the total open rate data is NOT as reliable as it was in the past. We recommend using alternative metrics, like clicks, to measure engagement. Furthermore, any email automations that are using opens as a trigger should be reviewed and adjusted.