Just to keep you in the loop, tracking email opens has become obsolete. This shift happened back in the fall.
Apple's iOS 15 introduced several privacy modifications that have greatly affected email marketers' visibility over recipients' interactions with their emails.
The most notable modification is that open rates are no longer reliably reported. Initial evaluations indicated that post-iOS 15, Apple Mail started to report a 100% open rate for its users. This shift has caused ripples in various aspects of email marketing, but it has especially influenced deliverability and list-cleaning processes.
Today we’ll show you 10 quick ways to ensure your list is clean and active to maintain or improve your deliverability after iOS 15.
#1 Segment contacts now by clicks
There are roughly three to four months before iOS 15 is released. That means that marketers still have enough time to use open rates as a metric for engagement.
However, instead of using it as the primary metric to segment their most active contacts, marketers should be using it as a secondary. The primary metric should be clicks.
This is helpful for marketers to understand how clicks correlate with engagement and the traditional open rates, and also to begin creating a habit of relying on clicks.
Consider this a weaning period as you lessen your dependence on open rates.
#2 Track purchase behavior
Bouncing off the first tip, it’s now crucial (yes, right now) that you are tracking purchase behavior. The reason is simple:
Recent purchases are the highest form of engagement.
After all, opens are mostly measured as a probability of the next action: clicks. Clicks are measured as a probability of the next action: the purchase.
All other metrics only point to that ultimate conversion and should be the ultimate metric you track.
#3 Track website activity
While opens are a few steps removed from purchase, they are nonetheless a good indication of how active your subscribers are (or how engaging your content is).
One way to get similar feedback is by tracking website activity. People who visit your website are interested in your products or services and are most likely willing to hear from you.
#4 Segment by subscription date
We discuss sunsetting in depth in the next point, but in general, sunsetting is the process of gradually unsubscribing contacts from your list after periods of inactivity.
At the moment, this relies heavily on open rates. However, marketers will need to find different ways to identify inactive subscribers.
One way is to start creating segments based on subscription dates. Older contacts will more likely become inactive than newer subscribers, and you can start sending out automation or campaigns based on these segments.
#5 Sunset now with opens, then sunset with clicks
Before iOS 15, it’s best to use open rates while you can access them and start sunsetting inactive subscribers. We have a recommended schedule for sunsetting based on open rates, which you can see below:
After iOS 15, your sunsetting practices will need to change. You will need to dedicate time to periodically active sunsetting campaigns.
You can do this by emailing your subscribers if they still want to receive communications from you. If they do, they must click a button or follow a link.
Unfortunately, this means you’ll have to say goodbye to those subscribers who don’t click on the link. This concept can be hard, but in general, recipients that don’t engage with your content and don’t want to hear from you are ultimately a waste of your time, energy, and money.
#6 Validate your contacts and clean your lists
It’s important to keep your lists clean in order to avoid any sort of spam traps or invalid email addresses. This goes beyond re-engagement campaigns.
For this step, which we recommend you do at least once per year, you should use a third-party tool like Mailgun or Neverbounce.
In the video above, we show you how to segment your contacts and test them against Mailgun’s validation to ensure that the email addresses don’t pose any medium or high risks to your reputation.
Because Mailgun, Neverbounce, and other services are not free, we recommend that marketers start by cleaning only a part of their lists, such as those that subscribed long ago.
#7 Use double opt-in
Double opt-in is one great way of ensuring that the email addresses used to sign up for your newsletters are real.
With double opt-in, the recipient signs up (the first opt-in), then has to opt in again when they receive the confirmation email.
#8 Run inbox placement checks
To keep a finger on the pulse of your deliverability, you should run inbox placement checks periodically. While this cannot provide you with 100% accuracy, you’ll get a general idea of the performance of your email sends and the placement in your subscribers’ inboxes.
#9 Increase content clickability
Not everything you need to do to prepare for the iOS 15 changes will have to do with the technical aspects of email marketing.
For instance, now that opens are dead (soon), you’ll have to focus more on clicks. Now that you’re focusing more on clicks, you need to add more clickable items elements in your newsletters and automations.
That’s how clicks will be able to replace better the opens-as-engagement metric we’ve come to rely on.
Even more, you should be making sure your campaigns and automations are more clickable now, so that you can track the changes and set a benchmark that you can currently compare to open rates.
#10 Keep an eye on bad metrics
Last, but certainly not least, you should be keeping an eye out for any bad metrics, which include spam complaints, unsubscribes, and hard or soft bounces.
If you have a truly healthy and clean list, then these bad metrics should never be high. However, if you notice some changes with these bad metrics, you should double check your contacts for any anomalies, such as spambot attacks.
Other reasons for higher bad metrics could be that you recently made a drastic change in your content, and your subscribers don’t recognize your brand anymore.
Another reason could be that you’ve simply sent too many emails and have annoyed your subscribers. These bad metrics can really impact your deliverability, so you should be pretty fast in reacting to any changes that you notice.
Wrapping Up
When it’s all said and done, the lead-up to the big iOS 15 release is an opportunity to change and grow while the conditions are still the same.
This is a great time to set benchmarks and learn what non-open metrics can help you understand your subscribers’ engagement better. With this information, you’ll be able to improve your list cleaning and overall deliverability.
To find out how Omnisend is reacting to these iOS 15 changes, be sure to check out our open letter. And of course, stay tuned to the Omnisend Blog and our iOS 15 hub Opens Are Dead for more updates as new information rolls out.
And, of course, now is a great time to try out Omnisend (14-day free trial) and see how our marketing automation platform can help you build great relationships with your subscribers and customers.
