Apple’s New Mail Privacy Protection: Good or Bad for B2B Marketers?

Change is one thing B2B marketers can count on. Between software efforts and a renewed push for improving privacy, it makes for a fluid situation.

A recent Apple Mail update is just the latest example. In this blog post, we’ll explain how Apple Mail privacy updates impact email open rates and change how marketers measure campaigns.

Apple Mail Privacy Updates

In iOS 15, Apple launched Mail Privacy Protection features, which lets users hide their IP address and load content privately and remotely. This impacts how open rates are counted. Because Apple is privately loading all content, there are concerns that every message that shows up in Apple Mail will register as open — even if the user never opens it.

Apple routes Mail images through its own proxy servers and caches them on Apple-controlled infrastructure. In many cases, images are fetched shortly after delivery, which fires tracking pixels even if a person never views the email. This prefetching hides the recipient IP, decouples fetch timing from user behavior, and can mask device and location signals.

What Is Apple Mail Privacy Protection?

Apple Mail privacy protection is a setting in Apple Mail to help prevent email senders and marketers from learning information about email activity. Users who turn it on will prevent email senders from seeing whether they opened the email. It also masks IP addresses, so marketers can’t link your Apple Mail behavior with other activities.

Mail Privacy Protection is available in the Apple Mail app on iOS 15 or later, iPadOS 15 or later, and macOS Monterey or later. It is an opt-in setting inside Mail, and it does not affect third-party email apps like Gmail or Outlook on the same device. MPP is separate from iCloud Private Relay, which protects Safari browsing, not email opens.

When Did iOS Email Privacy Protection Go Into Effect?

iOS email privacy protection went into effect on Sept. 20, 2021, when the latest release of iOS 15 became available to users.

Following the introduction of iOS email privacy protection in September 2021, Apple has continued to enhance its privacy and security features across its ecosystem. With the launch of iOS 17, Apple introduced several new and improved security features aimed not only at protecting iPhone owners from cyberattacks and spyware but also at enhancing privacy for the wider population. These include new protections in Lockdown Mode, which now extends to Apple Watch, the automatic removal of geolocation data from photos shared in Lockdown Mode, and the blocking of connections to non-secure Wi-Fi networks and 2G cellular networks​​.

Link Tracking Protection in Mail (iOS 17)

With iOS 17 and macOS Sonoma, Apple introduced Link Tracking Protection in Mail. It removes known tracking identifiers from links, such as ad click IDs like fbclid and gclid, while leaving common analytics parameters like UTM tags intact. This change can affect attribution for ad platforms that rely on those identifiers within email clicks.

Apple also announced major updates to Safari Private Browsing, Communication Safety, and Lockdown Mode, alongside app privacy improvements. New features such as Check In, NameDrop, and Live Voicemail were introduced, focusing on privacy and security. For instance, Check In allows users to share their location with friends or family members when they reach their destination, offering peace of mind with end-to-end encrypted location data​​.

Apple’s efforts to stop email tracking through Mail Privacy Protection in iOS 15 and macOS Monterey have had a significant impact. By preventing senders from using invisible pixels to collect information about the user, Apple has made it more challenging for advertisers to track email engagement, a move that could prompt other companies like Google to adopt similar privacy measures​

How Does Apple Mail Privacy Protection Affect B2B Email Marketing?

In the past, email data was loaded onto the device when recipients opened emails. Pixel data was loaded along with an email so marketers could know whether an email had been opened. They could also discern devices and location information.

Since Apple now loads the images remotely in the background to mask user activity, marketers and email providers can no longer be sure email pixels show accurate email open rates.

That’s a big deal. Apple Mail on iPhones, tablets, etc. accounts for nearly 50% of email opens. Faced with the option to Protect or Not Protect, analysts expect most people to protect.

Impact on Metrics

For marketers measuring open rates, the Apple Mail changes mean marketers may question the open rates they see. It can create havoc with testing, such as measuring the impact of subject lines in A/B tests. It may also negate user segmentation based on behavior, since marketers may not be able to tell the difference between an email opened by the Apple client or the actual user.

Google’s Gmail also proxies images, but it typically fetches them at the time of open. As a result, Gmail open events align more closely with human activity, even though IP and user agent reflect Google rather than the recipient. Treat opens with caution across providers, and put more weight on click and conversion data you can validate.

Click-to-open rates (CTOR) are another metric that may become less important. Since it measures the number of clicks as a percentage of open rates, marketers can no longer judge the effectiveness of email marketing campaigns based on CTOR.

iCloud+ Hide My Email and address aliases

iCloud+ offers Hide My Email, which creates random relay addresses that forward to a user’s mailbox. Recipients can deactivate or delete an alias at any time, which may increase address churn and reduce identity continuity in your CRM and marketing automation. Establish processes to detect and suppress dead aliases and to track activity across known relays.

Rather than rely on open rates as an indicator of success, marketers would be smart to use other more meaningful metrics to evaluate success.

Email Marketing Best Practices: Actions to Take

What can marketers do to evolve? Here are some of the best practices to put in place.

1. Evaluate measurements. Focus more on clickthroughs, engagement, and conversions.
2. Use time-based triggers rather than open-based triggers for automation.
3. Focus efforts to create more relevant emails to encourage actual opens, engagement, and action.
4. Continue to iterate and A/B test subject lines, images, email content, and CTAs to understand your customers’ preferences.
5. Switch to email segmentation practices based on click segmentation of manual segments rather than email opens.
6. Monitor deliverability without opens. Shift to clicks, conversions, spam complaints, unsubscribes, and hard bounces as core signals. Sunset inactive contacts based on no-click or no-conversion windows, and run periodic re-permission campaigns to confirm interest and protect sender reputation.

Review Sequence Triggers

You may also want to reconsider your email sequencing triggers. Most programs have used opens as a trigger to initiate the next message in the sequence. If you can’t trust opens as a trigger, you may want to adjust your workflow to trigger based on clicks or time delays instead of opens.

What Hasn’t Changed

The power of email marketing is one thing that hasn’t changed. When you get the right messaging, email continues to be one marketing’s most impactful tactics. It’s estimated that for every $1 spent on email, it generates $42 in sales — a 42X return. And more than 75% of marketers say the effectiveness of email is steady or improving.

More Changes Ahead

As companies and countries focus more on privacy, expect more changes to come. For B2B marketers, this means staying on top of new developments, being flexible and agile, and being prepared for what comes next.

Want to learn more about best practices for email marketing or need some help managing your B2B campaigns? Contact the pros at ER Marketing, a leading B2B agency focusing on delivering results.

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