Apple’s new privacy features announced last week will have an impact on email marketing.

Amongst Apple’s new privacy features for iOS 15, iPadOS 15 and macOS Monterey, is Mail Privacy Protection. This will give Apple Mail users the option to “Protect Mail activity”, which will:

• Block pixels used to collect information about the user.
• Hide the IP address detected during email loading.
• Load all remote email content privately.

This means that for those users who enable this feature:

• It may not be possible to detect an accurate email open action, and therefore overall open email rates for campaigns will be affected.
• IP addresses may be hidden so the user’s location cannot be accurately determined.
• IP addresses may be hidden so any action on an email cannot be linked to the user’s other online activity.

The impact of this is that click-through rates and conversion rates will remain the stronger indicators of engagement – i.e. a recipient opening an email is ok, but a recipient engaging with an email is of course better.

Although this currently applies to Apple’s Mail app only, it is possible that this functionality will be rolled out by other apps in future, especially if it proves popular with users.