As more Apple Mail users have enabled Mail Privacy Protection (MPP), opens have become an increasingly unreliable signal of individual-level engagement with marketing emails.
Email marketers are now having to redefine how they select active audiences for campaigns, how they determine inactivity and make suppression decisions, and how they design journey progressions that were previously driven by opens.
That last impact will be felt particularly hard by B2B brands, which are the biggest users of open-triggered journeys to move customers and prospects down interaction funnels.
Although B2B brands are likely to be less affected overall by MPP than their B2C colleagues, most will ultimately have 15-35% of their audiences affected. That's too much of an audience impact to ignore.
Brands will have to make changes to their open-triggered journeys, and they have several alternatives to consider.
Let's talk about the pros and cons of each.
1. Sending the Full Journey Sequence With Prominent Opt-Out
The crudest approach is to simply remove the requirement of an open to move forward in the series and just send the full series spaced out over a period of time. If you use such an approach, however, you must set expectations.
Consider including a series name or some other common language in the subject line of each email in the series so subscribers can immediately see how all the emails in the journey are related. The subject line or preview text could also indicate how many emails are in the series and which email a particular one is (e.g., "Part 2 of 3: How to…"). The body of the email should also include common language, plus a common design.
You could also use a secondary content block to strengthen each email's place in the series, either to remind openers of what the previous email in the series discussed or to tease the next email in the series.
Since the journey isn't driven by the subscriber's engagement, be sure to provide an opt-out for the series so those who aren't interested can stop getting the series. In addition to your global unsubscribe link in the footer, place an opt-out higher up in the email, as well.
Pros:
- Easy to set up, since it's a singular track
- Can be aligned to the buyer's journey—for instance, there can be an awareness track, consideration track, etc.
Cons:
- The longer the series, the higher the risk that you're sending emails to some subscribers who aren't interested in them
- Because the progression isn't engagement-driven, the pacing may be too fast or too slow for some subscribers
2. Using Clicks to Accelerate a Full Journey Progression
Depending on the calls to action in your series, clicks can be a signal to speed up the timing of your next email.
"If your subscribers are engaging with the journey, you want to capitalize on that," says Jessica Stamer, the consulting technical manager for Oracle Marketing Consulting. "With just a couple extra steps on your journey canvas, you can give them another opportunity to engage sooner so their lead score can potentially rise faster, and you can get them over to sales when they're the warmest."
Pros:
- Easy to set up
- Can capitalize on subscriber interest by not making them wait for the next email in the series
Con: Doesn't eliminate the risks associated with sending your series to subscribers who may not be interested—and the longer the series, the higher the risk
3. Using Real Opens to Accelerate a Full Journey Progression
Just because some of your opens have been deprecated by MPP doesn't mean that all opens are useless. Many digital marketing platforms are able to discern real opens triggered by subscribers from the unreliable auto-generated opens from MPP. Depending on your email service provider, you may be able to use real opens to accelerate the progression of a subscriber through your series.
Pro: Real opens are a lower bar for engagement than a click, resulting in more subscribers' being advanced more quickly through your series
Cons:
- Not all marketing platforms can distinguish between real opens and auto-opens
- Doesn't eliminate the risks associated with sending your series to subscribers who may not be interested—and the longer the series, the higher the risk
4. Using Real Opens and Auto-Opens to Trigger Journey Progressions
Although MPP has made open rate a less reliable trigger for journey progressions, B2B brands with a low percentage of auto-opens may opt to continue using both real opens and auto-opens to advance their series.
Yes, that would mean sending the entire series to any subscriber who has enabled MPP, but you'd avoid sending it to non-Apple users who aren't engaging with the series. So, compared with sending your full journey progression to everyone, the approach would result in a considerably more targeted audience.
Pros:
- Marketing platform doesn't have to distinguish between real opens and auto opens
- Progresses far fewer nonengaging subscribers through the journey compared with sending the full journey progression to everyone
Con: Still progresses subscribers through the journey who aren't engaging
5. Using Clicks to Trigger Journey Progression
Instead of using an open, marketers can use an email click to progress the subscriber through the journey.
"For our B2B clients who want stronger engagement-driven routing, this is our recommendation," says Cristal Foster, head of list growth and demand generation at Oracle Marketing Consulting. "But when embracing this approach, companies need to reevaluate the placement and copy of their CTAs and do some A/B-testing to maximize clicks."