Apple Mail Privacy Protection, rolling out with iOS 15, allows users to block email senders from gathering critical pieces of data about email recipients. This has created panic among many digital marketing firms because users of Apple’s Mail app now have the option of hiding if and when they open emails.

For years, many digital marketers have regarded email open rates as the golden measure of campaign success and user engagement. It is the way most marketers monetize emails through advertising. Open rates are their primary KPI or key performance indicator. Most operate on a CPM or cost per thousand impressions model, whereby brands pay and publishers get paid based on how many recipients see the ad. But when you can’t track opens, you can’t track who sees your ad, and the CPM-based performance system gets tossed out the window.

What does this mean to Advisors using a digital marketing platform?

While no two Advisors will have the same email list, we can estimate how many contacts will likely say yes to Apple’s newest privacy features.

We can safely assume 52 percent of any list is using an Apple email account to read emails (based on the average for all email opens in 2021). And we can further anticipate that 96 percent of these contacts will opt into the new additional privacy protection (as they did with the app tracking feature for iOS 14.5). Taking all of this known data into account, we can estimate that about 50 percent of contacts will likely use Apple Mail Privacy Protection.

Why is this GREAT NEWS for e-Relationship subscribers?

Email still provides the highest ROI or return on investment of all forms of marketing, digital or otherwise. The average ROI through email marketing is $42 for every $1 spent. 

Apple is forcing digital marketers to a higher standard by blocking the open-email data. But this doesn’t worry e-Relationship. Why? Because the creators of e-Relationship have always known that clicks and engagement are much more valuable metrics when it comes to proving a campaign’s effectiveness. After all, our creators were Financial Advisors too!

That’s why each of e-Relationship’s14 modules harnesses the power of creative content for relevancy, and the design of our system builds an Advisor’s personal brand to drive insight and engagement beyond the open. This provides metrics an Advisor can take to the bank: tangible actions by prospects and clients to engage!

While the other digital marketing firms scramble, e-Relationship will simply continue doing our thing: Creating compelling, relevant content proven to trigger sales and convert prospects into clients.