Apple email privacy changes

[alhawke]

I wanted to start this thread to hear anyone else's opinion on this. Apparently, Apple is changing their email security to reading as "open" for all emails (forgive me here. I'm not a computer programmer but this is my interpretation). This could impact advertising as ads are done by click and many ads will appear to be clicked when they are not. For me, I use a lot of BookBub ads so I have concerns. This might also impact our newsletters.

Any thoughts on this? For those more computer savvy, is this at all a concern and is there anything we can do about it?

[Post-Doctorate D]

As I understand it, it will show that the eMail was "opened" because the tiny little image mail providers use to track open rates will be downloaded on Apple's server.  So, eMails will show as having been opened regardless of whether the subscriber actually opened them.

As far as I can tell, it shouldn't affect clicks because Apple is only downloading images not following links in the eMail.

So, basically, it just means open rates are as much a meaningless statistic as they were before.  Previously, if people had their eMail apps set to not download images, or if they did not use HTML mail, they would have not shown as having opened their eMail even though they had.  So, before, actual open rates could be higher than reported open rates, now reported open rates may be higher than actual open rates.

Bottom line is don't trust open rates.

[alhawke]

As far as I can tell, it shouldn't affect clicks because Apple is only downloading images not following links in the eMail.

That's the main thing for me.

[Wonder]

I got this email from Bookbub today:

We don’t anticipate any impact on how BookBub and Chirp readers engage with our emails as a result of this change — they’ll continue opening emails and clicking on ads at the rates they always have been! But because the BookBub Ads auction is triggered each time a user opens an email from BookBub or Chirp, there is a risk of ads being served in artificially-opened Apple Mail emails that are not seen by a real reader.

To mitigate this risk, we’re updating our ad auction to prevent ads from serving to emails we suspect are automatically opened by Apple Mail rather than a real reader. Our process for identifying these artificial opens may not be perfect, but we expect our ongoing improvements to the auction will keep the overall ad market steady. You should of course continue to keep an eye on your campaigns to make sure you’re getting results you’re satisfied with, and if you’re interested, you can also read more about these changes in our FAQs.

I hadn’t realized that Bookbub auctions & pricing is connected to newsletter opens. And I’m a bit skeptical of their system for tracking opens when Apple blocks that data. Anyone charging money on opens is going to have a lot of false positives now.

More broadly, I’m not a big fan of tracking pixels, it’s really invasive to have a third party monitoring what you read and click, watching over your shoulder. I don’t use tracking pixels in my newsletter, I just send out the best newsletters I can. In my grouchy opinion, marketing analytics lead to all sorts of stupid behavior, like authors resending email repeatedly to get more opens. I prefer to treat my readers like I want to be treated, not spy on them like they’re wallet-having lab rats.

(Shakes fist at cloud)

lol, yes I am Grandpa  Simpson on this issue. I know not everyone will agree, and that’s fine. 

Wonder

[alhawke]

Yeah, the "artificially-opened Apple Mail emails that are not seen by a real reader"-thing caught my eye. I use BB ads almost exclusively and I'm wide. I'll have to watch if click vs buy goes down enough for me to consider not using. I hope not.