iOS 18 Email Marketing Updates: What You Need to Know

Apple continues to reshape the digital landscape with every updates, and post iOS 18 email marketing is changing. 

 

If you’re an email marketer, you need to pay close attention to these changes because they can have significant implications on how you engage with your audience. 

 

In this post, we’ll break down the key updates in iOS 18 that are either already here, or yet to come, and what they mean for your email marketing strategy.

1. Enhanced Privacy Features

Apple’s Commitment to Privacy: Apple has once again doubled down on user privacy with iOS 18, introducing more stringent privacy controls.

 

Building on features from previous versions, iOS 18 includes new tools that give users greater control over their data, directly affecting email tracking and open rates.

Impact on Email Marketing:

  • Open Rate Tracking: Like iOS 15’s Mail Privacy Protection, iOS 18 expands on this feature, making it harder for marketers to track open rates. Tracking pixels might not function correctly, leading to unreliable open rate data.
  • Location Tracking: Geotargeting may become less effective as iOS 18 obscures more precise location data, impacting location-specific offers.
  • Increased Unsubscribe Rates: With more frequent privacy prompts, users might be more inclined to opt-out of email communications.

What You Can Do:

  • Focus on Click-Through Rates (CTR): Since open rates may become less reliable, CTR will be a more accurate measure of engagement.
  • Content Relevance: Ensure your emails are more relevant and personalized to encourage engagement, even without relying on location data.
  • Clear Value Proposition: Make your emails so valuable that users would rather stay subscribed than miss out.

2. Focus on AI-Driven Personalization

AI-Driven Features: iOS 18 is rumored to come with enhanced AI capabilities that could impact how users interact with their email apps, including smarter categorization of emails and better spam filtering.

iOS 18 Email Marketing impact:

  • Smart Inbox Filtering: Apple’s Mail app could become even better at sorting emails into categories like “Important,” “Promotions,” and “Spam,” making less relevant or poorly targeted emails more likely to be ignored.
  • Personalization Pressure: With smarter filtering, there’s increased pressure on marketers to create highly personalized and relevant content to ensure emails land in the “Important” category.

What You Can Do:

  • Advanced Segmentation: Invest in advanced segmentation strategies to ensure your emails are highly targeted and relevant to each recipient.
  • AI Tools: Consider using AI-driven email marketing tools to craft more personalized content that resonates with your audience.

3. Understanding the "Summary" Feature in iOS 18 email marketing

What is the Email Summary Feature? In Apple Intelligence, summaries play a significant role, but they gain even more importance in the Mail app.

 

With just a tap, you can access an AI-generated summary that highlights the key points of the email.

Impact on Email Marketing:

  1. Reduced Engagement with Full Emails:
    Recipients may rely more on AI-generated summaries rather than reading the full content of your emails.

    This could lead to reduced interaction with the details in your email, potentially lowering click-through rates and conversions.

  2. Increased Competition for Attention:
    With summaries highlighting only key points, your email’s subject line, preview text, and critical content need to be compelling enough to stand out.

    If your summary isn’t engaging, recipients might skip over your email altogether.

  3. Challenges for Long-Form Content:
    Emails with longer, detailed content may suffer as AI might not capture the full context or nuance of your message.

    Important details could be lost in the summarization process.

  4. Changes in Performance Metrics:
    The way success is measured may shift. Metrics like open rates might become less relevant if users are skimming summaries instead of fully opening emails.

    Focus may shift more toward engagement with specific actions like clicks and conversions.

How to Prepare for io18 email marketing updates

  1. Optimize Subject Lines and Preview Text:
    Make sure your subject lines and preview text are not only attention-grabbing but also informative. They should clearly communicate the value of the email to encourage recipients to delve deeper beyond the summary.

     

  2. Highlight Key Takeaways:
    Design your emails with clear headings, bullet points, and concise messaging so that key information stands out. This increases the chances that important details will be included in the AI-generated summary.

     

  3. Leverage Personalization:
    Personalize your emails as much as possible. Personalized content is more likely to resonate with the recipient, encouraging them to engage with the full email rather than just the summary.

     

  4. Use Alt-Text:
    Whilst it’s unclear how Apple’s AI summary is going to work, it might rely heavily on alt-text to provide email summaries that are particularly text heavy. Therefore, be sure to use accurate alt-text descriptions for images, but don’t use keyword stuffing.

     

  5. Test and Adapt:
    Experiment with different formats and content strategies to see how they fare under the new summarization feature. Test shorter, more direct emails against longer, more detailed ones to find the best approach.

Conclusion: ios 18 email marketing updates

iOS 18 is set to bring significant changes that could reshape how email marketers engage with their audience.

 

While these updates present new challenges, they also offer exciting opportunities to enhance your email marketing strategy.

 

By staying informed and adapting to these changes, you can continue to drive engagement and conversions through your email campaigns.