New iOS update will change email marketing rules

The latest Apple iOS update (#15) that rolled out in September 2021 will include new privacy options that allow users to shield their data—creating a new headache for email marketers who rely on that data to keep their advertising targeted and specific.

An estimated 30 to 50 percent of your email list uses an Apple device. For an iPhone or iPad user who opts in to the new protections, marketers will find it impossible to see:

  1. Whether someone has opened an email.
  2. What IP address they used while browsing on Safari (the most popular iPhone and iPad browser).
  3. Whether a customer has used a “disposable” email address.

Changes for the Apple user

As Apple device users are offered the iOS 15 update, the device will  ask if they want to “protect mail activity” or “don’t protect mail activity.” It’s highly likely that they will choose the greater privacy option with a simple click. Once the update is installed, the user’s experience will not change except that they’ll see an option to use a “disposable” email address when filling out forms, applications, or registrations. Responses to the disposable email addresses will be automatically forwarded to their concealed, actual email address.

How will this impact your business?

The “open rate”—the number of customers who actually click to open and at least glance at your email—will no longer be a usable metric. All emails you send will be marked “received” instead of telling you if the receiver opened the email. Open rates have long been used to test the effectiveness of memo lines and to create new email lists of potential customers who have opened previous emails. If you are using this metric now, you might see a big jump in your “open rate,” but it will actually be counting everyone who received the email.  

You won’t be able to send geographically-targeted emails by analyzing IP addresses. Safari, the browser built in to iPhones and iPads, will conceal the IP addresses of its users by automatically rerouting the server requests through a “cyber maze.”

You won’t know whether you have a potential customer’s actual email address, because of the freely available disposable email addresses. And because the system will conceal whether the mail you send is actually being read, it will be much harder to know when to purge an abandoned, temporary email address, which will then take up space on your email list forever.

Going forward

Where will information come from, if it’s not generated by browsing habits and open rates? The data you need is still out there—but more of it will have to come from the potential customer as they click through links within emails or on your company’s web site. This might require a shift in marketing perspective, but it should also result in better data, allowing you to send more meaningful marketing emails that will get better results.  

Marketing in a world without cookies

Apple’s Safari browser and Netscape’s Firefox browser have already abandoned the use of “cookies,” but those browsers represent only a small share of internet users. Now Google has announced that it plans to stop using cookies on its Chrome browser, and doesn’t plan to replace the cookie system with an alternative way to track customers. That has internet marketers wondering how they will survive in a world without cookies.

What’s a cookie, anyway?

A cookie is a little piece of software coding that tells the computer who you are. A first-person cookie can help collect all your shopping choices on a web-site, so you can pay for them all at once. A third-person cookie collects your information not from page to page, but from web site to web site, and you don’t even know it’s there. That’s the kind of cookie that’s about to become extinct.

More and more sites are now asking you to consent to cookies on their landing page, but these little data clusters have been operating in the background for a long time. That’s why if you spend some time window-shopping for bows and arrows and then start looking at vacation possibilities, the travel web site will put up some options for archery camp. How does it know? It knows because it has seen the cookie you picked up at the archery supply site. This is also why, if you look at recipe sites during the day, you’ll find your Facebook feed full of ads for cookware that night. Because of cookies, the internet knows where you’ve been, and it uses that information to tempt you to buy something you might like.

Cookies have become wildly popular with advertisers. According to marketing research company Statista, 80 percent of internet advertisers rely on cookies—and when cookies disappear, those companies are going to have to figure out another way to work.

Business without cookies

How can your business adjust to the coming cookie extinction?

  1. Internet marketing experts advise that companies who rely on cookies start to test advertising campaigns on browsers that are already cookieless, like Safari.
  2. Put more thought into contextual advertising—essentially placing your ads on pages where you know potential customers might turn up. This means placing ads for your cookware right on the recipes web site. Geo-targeting—using a potential customer’s location to advertise things that might be used nearby (such as ads for hiking gear running in an area known for hiking trails) might work if your product or service is location-specific.
  3. Look at data from the publisher—the site that will host your ad—on what kinds of campaigns have worked before.
  4. Think about ways you can collect first-party data. Many shoppers will happily supply an email address in exchange for a discount or access to a bonus.  

Customer privacy is a trend that will not go away. With cookies on the way out, marketers will need to find ways to respect privacy while still getting the information they need.

Holy Zoomin’ Fun!

Okay, we’re all at home. We’re all on Zoom calls (or whatever calls you’re on these days).

Why not have some fun?

Your background sucks! Let’s be honest. Your pile of laundry, unmade bed, disheveled living area is not what you want to put out to the world.

You can blur it (which I did post about this before).

But why not hide it and make it spectacular?!

Here’s a list of downloads for your Zoom background that will make you the envy of the town (well…we’re pretty desparate these days …. so take what you can get).

The Shining Hallway

https://cdn.pocket-lint.com/r/s/660x/assets/images/151711-apps-feature-best-zoom-backgrounds-fun-virtual-backgrounds-for-zoom-meetings-image1-fkbuofgmrl-jpg.webp?v1

The Simpson’s Living Room

https://www.pocket-lint.com/apps/news/151711-best-zoom-backgrounds-fun-virtual-backgrounds-for-zoom-meetings

The Justice Center

https://cdn.pocket-lint.com/r/s/660x/assets/images/151711-apps-feature-best-zoom-backgrounds-fun-virtual-backgrounds-for-zoom-meetings-image1-lqds9ksieg-jpg.webp?v1

Star Trek

https://cdn.pocket-lint.com/assets/images/151711-apps-feature-high-res-zoom-backgrounds-image1-3ueeidtijy.jpg

Find Your Favorite Star Wars Background

https://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-backgrounds

Here are instructions to load the image to Zoom (using the desktop app):

1. In the Zoom app, click your profile in the top right corner, and click Settings

2. On the menu to the left, click Virtual Background

3. You’ll see a few default background options provided by Zoom, including an outer space scene or blades of grass. You can choose one of those by clicking on it, and it will automatically change your screen as well. There’s also an option for if you have a green screen and want to use that. 

4. If you want to upload a photo to use as your background, on the same Virtual Background Page, click the + icon next to where it says Choose Virtual Background. A box will pop up allowing you to upload a photo from your computer. Click on the one you want, and it will appear alongside the other pictures as an option for you to choose from.

5. To get rid of any photos you upload, tap the X in their top left corner. 

Here are the instructions to load the image (using the mobile app):

1. When you log into your account and join a meeting, tap the three dots at the bottom right of the screen to open the More menu. 

2. Tap Virtual Background

3. Select a background from the default options, or upload your own. 

Have some fun! In the crazy times we currently are in, people are more open to some of your crazy. Your Star Trek ‘Live Long and Prosper’ will not be seen as weird. It will be welcomed as a change.


via GIPHY

Be weird! Be creative! Have fun! THIS IS THE PERFECT TIME TO DO IT!