How to Prepare Your Email Marketing Strategy for iOS 15

Everyone is moving to email marketing for ecommerce business and the main reason behind it is rising the ad cost every next day. And now email marketing strategy for iOS 15 is the most hot topic after recent iOS 15 update release.

What it is and how it will affect the ecommerce business, let’s discuss.

Apple is very famous for giving luxury experience in all the gadgets. And everyone loves it because Apple is the only brand who is famous for it’s immense love for data privacy of users.

Apple is always the leader in the market to introduce the data security in different manners like-

• Find my iPhone feature
• Encryption of email attachments
• Activation Lock
• Touch ID
• 6 digit passcodes
• Face ID

And now they just took the next level of upgrade in form of most privacy-sensitive big technology. iOS 15, the latest version of their operating system (introduced on 20th September 2021), takes the user’s data privacy to the next level where other competitors can’t even imagine.

The iOS 15 update includes a privacy dashboard built upon the App Tracking Transparency feature, encryption of web traffic to block third parties to track the user behaviour and email privacy protection to block spammers from getting user’s information of activities.

And it’s really an amazing news for Apple users since iOS 15 will make the devices less prone to fraud, user’s identity theft etc.

But it’s not an amazing news for the people who rely heavily on email marketing to communicate with subscribers and customers to boost up sales and revenue in the business.

Reason is, new iOS updates is standing with a lot of barriers especial for email marketing business approach.

Let’s discuss the topic deeper to understand how it will impact the email marketing after iOS 15 update and what kind of email marketing strategy for iOS 15 update we should implement to keep up the business growth.

What Does iOS 15 Mean For Email Marketing

We all know about Apple’s addiction for keeping user’s data security to next level with every big update. And now in 2021, Apple is giving all the major updates on data security and user’s behaviour tracking safty.

But now with iOS 15 update, it’s actually a major roadblock for email marketing channel in business expansion.

And the reasons behind this major roadblock are the new features from iOS 15 update-

• Hide my email feature
• Mail privacy protection feature
• Hide IP address

Let’s discuss these new iOS 15 update features.

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Hide My Email Feature

We as a business owner or marketing service provider, always try to get maximum data from any user. And the reason is not only to keep them engaging but also try new experiments in business based on user’s behaviour.

And we know that how much apple love to user’s data privacy. So to limit the data we collect as sender from users, apple has suggested to hide the email address from vendors and thrid party platforms.

The main roadblock in this approach from apple is that we won’t be able to see user’s actual email address. Not only this but the system will continue to obscure the email address in reply.

Because apple will allow the users to create and user temporary email address just to hide the real one. It may cause the “hard bounce” too if users will delete that temporary email address and you will shoot your marketing emails.

And you many be aware of the fact that if your hard bounce rate will increase then it will decrease the email delivery rate and will hamper your email sender reputation too.

And it was not enough, apple gives the option to create and use the email address with no limits. So it could be in multiple of thousands too if anyone want.

With this option, you should consider a fact that there could be a few email addresses which would not be in use forever. And you have to pay for the subscription fee of you service provider such as klaviyo and activecampaign.

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Mail Privacy Protection Feature

Mail privacy protection feature is another barrier in understanding email marketing insights from whatever ESP you use.

Because this new feature will prevent tracking of subcriber’s activities on email. It will block all kind of tracking scripts such as Facebook pixel or anything similar to it.

The system will download everything from the email sent by ESP and then it will pass the data to subscriber.

So what does it mean for email marketer?

This new iOS 15 feature will block important information such as-

• Email open
• Email forward
• How many times subscriber viewed the email

It simply mean that now we can’t trust on the open rate insights anymore.

We always try to test multiple variations of subject lines to increase the open rate of the email we send to subscribers but now it won’t work anymore.

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Hide IP Address

The mail privacy protection feature of iOS 15 update comes with additional advantage of hiding IP addresses.

And this will prevent tracking of subscriber’s location when he/she will open the email sent by email service provider.

Definitely it’s a good news for subscribers because they can hide themselves but it’s not good for us being a promotor.

Without getting the right information of subscriber about IP address, device they use, timezone and activities, it would become harder to segment the subscribers effectively.

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How iOS 15 Will Create Barriers For Email Marketing

We’ve discussed already about the new features of iOS 15 updates and what they really mean for.

And it will directly affect the stats of our email marketing campaigns in open rate, engagement rate, location based segmentations and so on.

I am listing all the possible barriers for email marketing due to iOS 15 update-

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How iOS 15 Will Be Beneficial For Email Marketers

We all heard a lot that everything happens for good.

But since we know that iOS 15 is actully creating a lot of complications in email marketing but it has other benefits too.

Previously, most of the people usually send the emails based on common practices. But now the time has changed.

It’s giving a lot of opportunities to create personalized content based on the information subscriber is sharing with us.

This new iOS 15 update will also bring an opportunity to capture the market because a lot of people will lost into the competition of latest updates in the email marketing industry.

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How To Prepare Email Marketing Strategy For iOS 15

As per the stats showing on google search, the apple device users are close to 50% in united states.

It simply mean that Apple is the leader in the market because Apple alone is holding almost 50% users of all the smartphones in united stated.

And to live into the system, we have to follow the leader of the industry anyhow.

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Get Ready For New Updates

Get ready doesn’t mean of you should get ready for iOS 15 update only but you should prepare yourself to adopt every change the system and industry will bring into the ecosystem.

You must test these important factors-

• Subject lines
• Pre-header
• Email content
• Language
• Preferable day to get maximum engagement
• Preferable time to get maximum engagement
• Before and after bechmarks

It will definitely help you to get the winning version of your email marketing campaigns.

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Work On The Data Collection

We know that we won’t be able to get true ecommerce email marketing statistics after this iOS 15 update. So my recommendation is to speed up the process of the data collection.

And by the time, if the customers or subscribers data will go in the inactive state, then just throw them away from your email service provider.

The data collection process should be simple and easy so that you will get maximum conversions for subscribers.

Your conversion could be high if you will focus on the factors mentioned below-

• Simple checkout process
• Neat and clean pop up to collect subscriber’s data
• Right positioning of the pop up to not irritate your visitors
• Multistep form to get maximum data from your visitors

All the data collection process should be focused on getting the user’s interest as niche, product category, festival sales, black friday and cyber monday offers, weekend deals or it could be anything.

Offer the discount coupon code, cashback on first order, complimentory product on first purchase to make the process easy and effective.

PS: For collecting the user’s information smoothly, I personally use the convertbox and I would recommend you to use it.

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Prepare Your Ecommerce Store Effectively

Everyone loves neat and clean shopping portal with easy to explore navigation. If it would become complicated then visitors will bounce from your store.

To keep the engagement rate high in your email marketing campaigns, give the main control in your subscribers hand in terms of how frequently they want to get emails.

Example- do they want to recieve the emails every week, every month or only on special events/days.

It will help you to understand the matrics more effectively and people won’t think to unsubscribe too frequently.

But keep in mind that you should give two options in every email you will send to your customers. First is, option to update the preference for emails and the second one is to unsubscribe from the list.

Respect the data of subscribers and send the emails they want to read and engage. Otherwise, sending a ton of promotional emails will increase the reports against your sending email address.

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Focus On List Management

Doesn’t matter if you are focusing on email marketing strategy for iOS 15 update or not but the segmentation and list management of your subscribers and customers should be an important part of your practice.

If you don’t know much about the segmentation ideas, I am listing down a few below-

These are just a few ideas to work on segmentation in ecommerce email marketing.

But now the old common practices won’t work anymore and we have to work smartly for playing safe.

So we must create a segment of the subscribers who are using apple email ID. And inside klaviyo, it’s just a task of less than 30 seconds as mentioned in the screenshot below

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Increase Email Delivery Rate

Achieving an awesome email delivery rate is not a big magic but it’s a big practice actually. Email delivery rate decides weather you will grow with email marketing or not.

To increase email delivery rate, follow these practices-

1. Email connection should be encrypted
2. Keep your sender reputation clear
3. Avoid spammy content
4. Send emails only if needed
5. Monitor hard bounce and remove those emails quickly
6. Ask your subscribers to reply to your anyone of first three emails
7. If not getting good open rate (consider it) then get a dedicated IP to send emails

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Focus On Email Verification

Email verification is an important part of effective email marketing. But mostly people do email verification during the onboarding process only and then never.

We know that apple will give an option to create unlimited temporary email addresses and users can delete it whenever they want.

So my suggestion is to send re-verification email once in a month in exchange of valuable information or gift card or cashback or normal discount coupons.

It will keep your email list clean and active.

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Analyze The Metrics

While we don’t have clear values of the email marketing metrics but we still have insights such as-

• Email open rate (can consider but can’t depend on it)
• Click through rate
• Bounce rate
• Unsubscribe rate
• Purchase
• Product page visit

Since any individual metrics will not be perfect and should not be responsible for any decision in email marketing after iOS 15 update, we have to look into the mentioned factors deeply to understand what’s happening with the data.

And the end goal of email marketing should reflect on sales dashboard of shopify, and not in email marketing open rate.

So keep your eyes on the data you are getting inside your ESP.

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How To Increase Engagement Rate In Email Marketing

Everyone loves to see big open rates, click rates with all the emails they send to subscribers or customers.

But mostly people struggle for years to understand what is a major roadblock in increasing the engagement rate of the emails they send.

I am listing proven techniques of email marketing to increase the engagement rate quickly-

• Optimize “From” name as brand
• Optimize preview text
• Deep level of segmentation
• Identify the best time to get maximum engagement
• Identify the best day to get maximum engagement
• Simple but crispy subject line
• Create hyper personalized content
• Ask for reply
• Avoid sending only promotional emails
• All emails should be mobile friendly
• Use high quality images in emails
• Follow a same color theme in all emails
• Optimize the footer of all emails

For creating hyper personalized images and video inside my emails, I am using nexweave software.

It’s helping me to improve my engagement rate since beginning of 2021.

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Conclusion

We have discussed almost every corner of the iOS 15 update for email marketing. And a true statement is, it’s going to be more harder by the time.

If you like it or not, you have to adopt the new changes and you have to explore many more ways outside of all the suggestions mentioned in this blog post.

Last but not the least, remember that this new update won’t affect anything on the side of your subscribers and customers. So keep sending valuable emails to keep them engaging with your brand.

All the suggestions and ideas I have mentioned in this article are based on my personal understanding, personal practice and research on internet. It should not consider as any statement in the email marketing industry.

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Frequently Asked Questions