Since September 20th, 2021, it is no longer possible to precisely track the behaviors of Apple Mail app users (iOS 15 and Mac OS Monterey). Apple Mail Privacy Protection protects its users' privacy by automatically reporting their emails as opened to email marketing tools such as Brevo. Brevo has taken some initiatives to help you adapt your email marketing strategy to the privacy protection tools that impact your open metrics.
How does Apple Mail Privacy Protection work?
To know if an email was opened, Brevo places an invisible pixel into each email campaign. It’s a very small and transparent image that loads each time the email is opened. By implementing this pixel we can:
- Count opens,
- Estimate a contact’s location and time zone,
- Determine device type, and
- Know the email address.
The Mail Privacy Protection feature is activated by default on every Apple device. When users of Apple Mail have Mail Privacy Protection enabled, emails are automatically marked as opened when they arrive, even if the recipient hasn't actually opened them. This causes open-related metrics to be inflated and thus, less accurate. ❗️ Important
Note that this only applies to Apple Mail — and not subscribers using, for example, the Google Mail app on their iPhones.
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Which data and actions are impacted by Apple Mail Privacy Protection?
Only data and actions based on opens are impacted by Apple Mail Privacy Protection. All other data and actions remain unchanged, allowing you to keep track of your recipients' engagement. As Apple Mail automatically opens all tracking pixels, it is not possible to clearly determine which emails have been opened by a human.
Expand the accordions below to discover the data and actions impacted by the Apple Mail Privacy Protection:
Emails sent to users with the Apple Mail Privacy Protection activated are automatically marked as opened as soon as they are received, even if they have not actually been opened by the recipient. This therefore inflates all open-related metrics, making them less reliable, such as:
- Opens and Open rate metrics in your email campaign report, or
- Open rate and Total opened metrics in your campaign statistics.
Moreover, the Distribution and Opens breakdown metrics in your email campaign report are not calculated for Apple Mail Privacy Protection users, making it impossible to know where the email was opened and from which device.
➡️ To learn more about the different open-related metrics, check our dedicated section Opens in Access and export your email campaign report.
In your automations, the following steps will not work for Apple Mail Privacy Protection users:
Triggers
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Rules
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Any segmentation based on open-related metrics, such as Email opened and Email not opened, will not work for Apple Mail Privacy Protection users:
During the creation of your email campaign, using the A/B test on subject line or Send at best time options will not be reliable for Apple Mail Privacy users as they are based on email opens.
If you want to exclude Apple Mail Privacy Protection users from your open metrics, follow the procedure below Can I exclude Apple Mail Privacy Protection users from my statistics?.
Can I exclude Apple Mail Privacy Protection opens from my statistics?
At Brevo, we can tell which emails were opened by Apple Mail Privacy Protection, and which were not thanks to the Loaded by proxy event that appears in your transactional logs when a contact who enabled Apple Mail Privacy receives an email.
By default, Apple Mail Privacy Protection users are included in your open metrics. However, you can always choose to exclude them from your metrics:
- Access Campaigns > Settings > Default settings.
- From the Default report settings section on the right of your screen, check the Exclude Apple MPP opens checkbox.
Apple Mail Privacy Protection users are now excluded from your open metrics! That way, you can base your email marketing strategy on real-human interactions for a more accurate view of your recipients' engagement.
❓FAQs
The Apple Mail Privacy Protection only affects opens. Other metrics are not affected.
When looking at your email statistics, you might discover that Apple Mail users represent only a small portion of your contacts. Moreover, there's little reason to assume that Apple Mail users have fundamentally different behaviors compared to Android users. For instance, an A/B test email campaign on subject lines with non-Apple Mail users likely predicts effectiveness for all users. As privacy protection might expand to other providers, you can analyze your click metrics to measure your email campaign's effectiveness. You can for example adjust your automations to trigger on clicks, and not opens. You can also segment your contacts based on clicks rather than opens.
Emails coming from Apple will not be counted as an open in your scenario, and will not trigger the next action.
The unengaged filters are based on clicks and conversions and can be customized. You can still use them for opens from non-Apple Mail users.
Apple Mail Privacy Protection does not affect deliverability. It only inflates your opens and open rates making them unreliable. Exclude Apple Mail Privacy Protection users from your email campaign reports to obtain key metrics with a more accurate reflection of human engagement with your campaign.
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