• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, March 29, 2022

Email marketers have lived in terror since last September that Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection and iOS 15 would destroy the open rate as a metric—along with their businesses. 

Well, guess what? It’s not as bad as expected, according to a survey conducted by HubSpot, written by Maxwell Iskiev.

Of the 300 emailers polled by Iskiev, 65% say MPP and GDPR have had  a moderate-to-significant impact on their email marketing strategy. 

For 47%, the impact has been neutral. For 29%, it has been  negative. And 24% say it is positive.  

But the impact varies slightly by the privacy problem being addressed. Those affected by iOS 15 say:

• It reduced access to our data — 52%
• It reduced my ability to leverage location-based targeting for marketing emails — 46%
• It reduced my click-through rate — 40%
• It reduced my ability to see email open rates — 34%
• It reduced my ability to A/B test subject lines for marketing emails — 30%

Here is how GDPR has affected the same activities:

• It reduced access to our data — 49%
• It reduced my ability to leverage location-based targeting for marketing emails — 35%
• It reduced my click-through rate — 35%
• It reduced my ability to see email open rates — 34%
• It reduced my ability to A/B test subject lines for marketing emails — 30%

But marketers are adapting to the hist suffered by location-based targeting, click-through rates, open rates, and A/B testing due to these privacy developments. 

These findings mirror those reported by other companies. In February, GetApp released findings showing that overall email performance remained the same 44% of marketers, while 36% said it had improved. 

How can this be so?

It depends on tactics. HubSpot reports that 62% of the affected brands in its survey are prioritizing different KPIs, such as:

• Clicks
• Click-through rates
• Web traffic
• Click rates
• Unsubscribe rates
• Audience surveys 

In addition, 37% are using other channels, such as SMS. And 52% are utilizing data sources that are unaffected by recent privacy changes, like open rates of non-Apple consumers. 

Moreover, 28% working on improving email deliverability. 

How is all this working? Firms experiencing a positive impact are doing the following:

• Prioritizing different KPIs to measure the effectiveness of email marketing — 71%
• Leveraging user data from sources unaffected by data-privacy changes — 52%
• Leveraging channels other than email for marketing — 48%
• Focusing on improving email deliverability — 16%

Companies seeing a negative impact are making these changes:

• Prioritizing different KPIs to measure the effectiveness of email marketing — 62%
• Leveraging user data from sources unaffected by data privacy changes — 57%
• Leveraging channels other than email for marketing — 41%
• Focusing on improving email deliverability — 37%

Summing up, those who have seen a positive effect are:

• 9% more likely to prioritize different KPIs
• 7% more likely to leverage other channels, such as SMS
• 21% less likely to focus on improving email deliverability (perhaps we can infer that they have already done the grunt work to improve deliverability 
• 5% less likely to leverage user data from sources unaffected by data-privacy changes.

Iskiev concludes that while “privacy features will continue to evolve and pose new challenges for brands, companies that navigate them successfully will still be able to create experiences that feel personalized, memorable, and — importantly — secure for online audiences.”