Apple is coming for email marketing.
It was only a matter of time before Apple turned its’ Privacy eyes to the world of email. Email marketing- the sending of a commercial message to a consumer who has given you consent to do so, has sadly become synonymous with ‘mass marketing’. We have forgotten the very characteristics that allow email marketing to win above other types of marketing, namely:
1. You know your consumer and their past behaviour, so can personalise messages accordingly and therefore only send messages that have value
2. You know what days/times your consumers read messages, so can send your messages at that time and cut through all the other marketing noise
3. You can build and send emails quickly, at low cost, so have a cost of marketing / engagement / ROI that wins above other marketing channels
4. You get directly into your consumer’s inbox - a very personal space vs other marketing channels - so you are more likely to be engaged with
No doubt, email marketing is a very valuable marketing channel and a treasured route to driving sales. However Positives 1. and 2. have become the poor cousin to 3. and 4. and resulted in a consumer receiving frequent and irrelevant marketing, that frustrate rather than delight.
Too often have I heard the argument “Our unsubscribes remain low”- but remember, the opposite of love is indifference, not hate. When someone truly no longer holds feelings for you, you simply fade from consciousness.
With the coming iOS 15 update, Apple has stepped into shoes that were ready for the taking: an increased control on what messages make the inbox, and what information is revealed back to the sender. With ‘Hide My Email’ no messages will make your inbox directly and with ‘Mail Privacy Protection’ no tracking is revealed (before the click). Impact will be high: Apple could be the single Power with permission to directly message your consumers, and see how they interact with your messages - and you will lose data (unique email address) and engagement views (opens). Implications mean a modification of consumer journeys based on open rate, a loss of owned data (but perhaps an inflation of email addresses, an adjustment of internal targets and perhaps even an inability to link consumers across channels - you simply won’t have the data to do so.
If you don’t have a good reason why a consumer should give you their real email address… start finding one.
All is not lost. Firstly, Apple has revealed ‘burner’ email addresses will end in @privaterelay.appleid.com - so you can identify and manage those consumers using ‘Hide My Email’ eg. incentivise a real email address. Secondly, clicks were the email measure that mattered - and those you still have.
Could Apple have gone further? I await the ‘Apple Marketing Privacy Preference Centre’ - where you can choose not just who you want to hear from, but when and how often. And I wonder how long will it be before Apple bundles this control with only its’ Apple email addresses, taking on the current world email provider champion Gmail.
And remember, usually where one goes, others follow - Apple has set a course others are likely to follow. How is your SMS strategy going?
*All views my own*
