- Data Governance
- Data Management
- Email Automation
- Integrations & Personalizations
- Marketing Automation
- Odyssey
- Privacy
- Privacy & Data Governance
- Technology
The Impact of Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection – 6 Months Later
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.
What is Mail Privacy Protection & How Does it Work?
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.
Omeda’s Initial Test Results
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.
What the Data Shows, 6 Months Later
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.
As expected, we again see that unique and total open rates were impacted; however, we are now seeing a much larger impact compared to what we saw three months ago. In fact, we are now seeing open rates at nearly DOUBLE what they were prior to the rollout of MPP.