Picture this: Your company's email campaigns have an average open rate of around 15%. Then one day it suddenly skyrockets to 40%.
Maybe it's just a fluke, you think... until it happens again. And again.
Anyone with marketing chops will know it's not a cause for celebration. Something is just not right.
For companies that send emails, that scenario may play out as early as mid-September. But it won't require much detective work to solve: Apple's forthcoming iOS 15 privacy update will soon render open rates irrelevant, and marketers need to start adapting now.
Why Traditional Open Rates Will Die
You might be wondering how one tech giant's move could obliterate a metric that marketers have depended on for two decades.
Here's how: Apple users who upgrade to iOS 15 will choose whether they want to activate "Mail Privacy Protection" for any Apple Mail apps they use to read emails. Language in the beta version makes the convincing case that most users will choose to do so, and in that case all emails will be marked "opened"—even if they aren't.
The change is understandably rattling e-commerce merchants, whose clientele is more likely to check their emails via mobile app. But it also matters to B2B businesses, even if just a small portion of their email subscribers fit that profile.