iOS 15

How to Navigate Email Marketing After Apple’s iOS 15

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Navigating email marketing after iOS 15

What if the open rate on your next email hit 67% within minutes of sending it to your list?

Seems like a reason to get excited.

You might start thinking about all the orders that are about to start pouring in.

Guess what. There’s a good chance you’ll start seeing numbers like that in the near future.

But it’s not because two-thirds of your subscribers are opening your emails…

This is one of the immediately apparent effects of Apple’s soon-to-release iOS 15 update.

Every one of your readers who checks email from Apple Mail (even if they have non-Apple emails like Gmail or Yahoo) could have their emails marked as open…

The most recent data I’ve seen indicates that could be almost 50% of your list!

Source: Litmus’ Email Client Market Share in July 2021

Here’s What You Need to Know

I recorded a video about iOS 15 back in June. It reveals some insights and actionable tips to help you navigate the coming changes.

Here’s the gist of it: starting as soon as mid-September, you won’t be able to trust open rates AT ALL…

And any marketing efforts you’re doing based on open rates will have to go back to the proverbial drawing board:

  • split testing subject lines…
  • segmenting engaged vs. unengaged (a ton of E-com store owners live by this one)…
  • resending to non-openers…
  • triggered emails…

…and more.

One of the shifts email marketers will have to make is focusing on clicks rather than open rates.

And one of the skills you (or your copy team) will need to is the ability to write emails that get clicked.

This has ALWAYS been important to drive sales.

But post-iOS 15… clickthroughs will be essential for testing, tracking and segmenting.

Otherwise, you’re sending emails in the dark.

For the unprepared, it’s about to be pandemonium out here.

If email makes up any percentage of your revenue, you have to start getting ready NOW.

On September 6, 2021, I’ll gave a live training on Zoom to show you how I write click-magnet emails. We even wrote one live during the training! Watch the recording here.

In recent emails, 19.3%… 26.1%… even 33.6% of my readers have clicked through.

(That’s a lot of sales opportunities, and it gives me a lot of engagement data I can use for testing, tracking and segmenting.)

I’ll also walk you through 4 more critical steps you need to take to navigate the new reality.

If you struggle getting clicks, this training will be good for you.

If you rely on 30-day or 60-opens to segment your emails list, this training will be good for you.

If you’re a copywriter or marketing strategist whose clients or potential clients depend on email to make sales, this training will be good for you — and could really make you stand out from your competitors who know nothing about this topic.

Watch the recording of my emergency iOS 15 training here.

I look forward to seeing you.

Will Apple’s iOS 15 Update Kill Email Marketing?

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When people say “email is dead” you can pretty much always ignore them.

They’re probably selling a new shiny object (or they’re just mad they haven’t figured it out).

Recently, you may have heard a bunch of conversations with a similar apocalyptic tone.

Many entrepreneurs and marketers are freaking out about how Apple’s coming iOS 15 update will affect your email marketing.

If you haven’t heard these conversations yet, you soon will. Because the impact will be big.

I recorded a video explaining what iOS 15 and Mail Privacy Protection are, along with insights and actionable tips to help you navigate the coming changes.

If email makes up any percentage of your revenue, you have to prepare NOW

Because soon, the split tests you’ve been doing won’t work.

Most of the segments you’re building for your email list will be scrambled.

Your re-engagement campaigns will be pointless.

The iOS 15 update will turn the email world upside down — and it looks like the changes could go live as early as mid-September.

I’m revealing 5 steps you need to take to protect your profits on Monday, September 6th.

If you’d like to join, get details and register here.

None of the email experts I’ve seen are talking about the most important adjustment you need to make. I’ll show you what it is AND how to do it on during this training.

I hope you can join!

Subject Lines Are Overrated – Here’s Proof

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Subject lines are the sexy part of email marketing.

Everyone wants to know the secret… the specific sequence of words that works every time.

Such secrets do exist.

But in reality, word choice is just one part of the magic of great emails.

Let me illustrate with a real-world example from this week.

Check out this screengrab. It’s showing the performance of a promotional email we sent out Wednesday.

The stats are ridiculous.

If you can’t read the pic, it’s showing an 84.5% open rate and 45% click rate. That means more than half of the openers also clicked through to the order form.

(More importantly, nearly half of the people who saw the order form also made a purchase.)

When someone sees those numbers, you already know what the first question will be 9 times out of 10:

“When did you learn to use Photoshop, Donnie?”

The next question is, “What’s the subject line?“

And yes, the subject line was perfect… and the preheader text was brilliant (I’ll reveal them in a minute)…

But we had a lot more going for us than just that:

  • You may have noticed this email went to 197 people. This is a very targeted segment of the much bigger list.
  • The “guru” has built great rapport and a ton of trust with subscribers. Becoming known as THE expert your subscribers look forward to hearing from is probably the greatest secret to email success.
  • There’s been a bunch of engagement with this segment recently to drum up anticipation.

Those factors will help you get opens. And they’ll definitely impact clicks.

But how did we get clickthrough rate so high?

(By the way, the last time this same offer was made to this same segment – before I started working with the client – the best CTR was less than 13%. As you recall, we got 45% this time.)

  • Focus on exclusivity
  • Social proof
  • Emphasis on emotional benefits over product features
  • Subtle validation of the reader’s self-worth

Obviously these results are specific to this effort. The point is… subject lines ARE important, but you need more than just tight subject lines to maximize the impact of and revenue from your emails.

Alright, I’ll finally reveal what the subject line and preheader text were.

Subject line: [First Name], here’s your private invitation

Preheader text: Congratulations! (shhh… it’s a secret)

The combination of personalization, an anticipated invitation, “congratulations” and a secret helped this achieve a spectacular open rate. 

Again, the biggest win here is the insanely high clickthrough rate and the conversion rate on the sales page.

In a way, open rates have always been overrated. Just because someone appears to have opened your message doesn’t mean they actually read it. And if they didn’t take any action, how good was the email, really?

Clickthrough rate is a much better measure of engagement. And sales is the ultimate metric, of course.

Speaking of open rates, have you heard about how the coming update to iOS 15 will make it basically impossible to track open rates for Apple users?

Some marketers are worried this will cause a disaster.

I believe it’s an opportunity.

Find out how in the video below.