iOS 15 Email Marketing & Acquisition Strategies For This Holiday Season

The Fast Facts:

iOS 15 (with iCloud+) allows users to create “burner” email addresses. Basically, an email address you can use that’s not directly linked to you, but still forwards messages to your inbox. This feature is called “Hide My Mail”.

iOS 15 continues to build on the privacy customization options made available in iOS 14. Any apps that require tracking show a prompt to iOS users that asks if they would like to allow tracking.

Email senders will no longer be able to use invisible pixels to collect information about users, including metrics like email open rate. IP addresses will be masked so the user’s activity can’t be linked to other online activities or their location.

What does this mean for email marketing?

While “Hide My Mail” is a paid feature with iCloud+, the absence of invisible pixels will still affect the ability to track email open rate and location across the board. At this point, we feel the greatest impact of iOS 15 for email marketing will be seen with segmenting and A/B testing. But, don’t worry, we have some strategies (and insight) that will help!

Segmenting

Thankfully, there are other ways to learn information about your users than through tracking. Honestly, we prefer information that’s willingly handed over rather than tracked. Finding moments to create dialogue and engagement with your customer is key to a long-term relationship.  Try creating email campaigns that ask users questions about themselves that help you create more personalized content for them. You’ve probably gotten these emails before, they often have a subject line like, “we want to get to know you better”!  Additionally, creating a quick survey as they’re handing over their email address, can be quite useful for future segmenting – even if it’s just learning where they’re located!

A/B Testing

Here’s what our friends at Klaviyo are saying about email open rates

“They can make us think our marketing efforts are paying off. But in reality, they don’t tell us anything about business growth.” We couldn’t agree more. Often, the open rate has little to do with actual conversion.  Usually, when A/B testing, marketers will make the variable the subject line (a common way to increase open rates). However, with the new updates, we suggest moving toward a content-based variable inside the email – whether that be a CTA, graphic/image, or headline. These things tend to move the needle for conversion, whereas a subject line is usually only crucial to users who aren’t as familiar or fans of your brand.  At the end of the day, these email privacy updates are helping push brands to a more loyal engaged following rather than a passive inactive following.

What does this mean for customer acquisition?

We’re no strangers to the fact that paid media performance has been unstable since the iOS 14 updates. And, with iOS 15 we will see a continued inability to access key marketing conversion data, particularly on Facebook.  

How do I acquire customers in an iOS 15 world?

Cross-Store Selling

Cross-Store Selling through Carro Brand Partnerships is a great way to tap into other top Shopify brands’ audiences and traffic. The Carro Network is full of brands looking to retail high-quality products from like-minded brands. Not only do you get exposure (and sales) via top Shopify brands, but often, you get to keep the customer data from the Sales made on your brand partners’ site. Did someone say new customers without ad spend? We sure did.

Discover How to Acquire Customers Through Cross-Store Selling

Book a Demo

‍