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Mail Privacy Protection from Apple and How It Interacts with Account Engagement

Udgivelsesdato: Sep 30, 2025
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Apple has announced plans to obscure open data for customers using Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) in Apple Mail, expected to roll out between September and November 2021. High adoption of the feature is expected and affects all users of Apple Mail, regardless of their email address’ domain.

This article aims to educate Account Engagement users on what’s changing, what impact it has on the Account Engagement platform, and what options are available for improvements. This article will be updated as new information becomes available.
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What does this mean for Account Engagement users?
— You’ll likely see inflated open rates for emails. The impact varies depending on a number of factors. For example, whether there’s significant usage of Apple Mail among your prospects and how similar Apple's open activity resembles activity Metrics Guard is designed to filter out.

— Any automation rules, dynamic lists, completion actions, scores, or Engagement Studio triggers that are based on opens may fire when not appropriate. 

— With non-human opens happening, lower-value prospects appear more engaged than they truly are.

What can I do to help?
— Audit your marketing assets for use of opens. Do you have automations, dynamic lists, or completion actions that are based on opens? Do opens affect scoring? Do any Engagement Studio programs reference email opens? 

— Estimate the impact of the changes. Make note of your average open rates currently, and keep an eye on them moving forward. If any spikes are detected, you can review Advanced Email Analytics Reports to determine any differences. However, it's important to note that the full effect on these reports is still not entirely known and may change over time.  

— Plan for new engagement metrics:
1) Plan content that encourages prospects to click through where they otherwise would have stayed in the email. For example, a blog post preview with a link to read the rest.
2) Plan content that encourages prospects to click. For example, “give this content a thumbs-up”.
3) Plan to re-establish your baseline for engagement — what does engagement look like in your org now that Apple opens are happening and your content is encouraging more clicks?
4) Implement list hygiene (https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sf.pardot_database_hygiene.htm&type=5) and marketing programs that account for what engagement looks like now. 
5) Start using other sources of data for engagement, such as webinar registration. 
6) We strongly recommend moving away from using email opens as a barometer for engagement. Start planning to transition away from opens as a key metric. 

What is Account Engagement doing to help?
We currently use 2 different filtering methods to help keep out unwanted activity. We’ll continue to monitor and fine-tune their effectiveness as we’re able to learn more about how the new features work. Our team is also reviewing options to adjust Einstein and other AI-based features so that they account for these new changes. As more information becomes available, we’ll continue to develop new solutions as necessary. 

What does this mean for the industry as a whole?
The overall changing privacy landscape, including the Apple Mail privacy changes, indicates a trend away from individualized tracking on the internet. This trend includes email and web tracking, even when individuals are only tracked with anonymous identifiers. This trend is forcing a strategic shift in the marketing automation industry. As the internet ecosystem moves toward anonymity, a switch to aggregate data and intelligent approaches to aggregate-based analytics may be the most stable strong long-term solution.

We recommend focusing on zero- and first-party data via customer-side collection mechanisms and integrations with external sources. For example, voluntary form submissions, purchase history, event registrations, social interactions, and logged-in activity on websites exemplify these kinds of data. 
 
Vidensartikelnummer

000389319

 
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Salesforce Help | Article