The Impact of Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection on Email Campaigns

Overview

Apple’s introduction of Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) with iOS 15 and macOS Monterey brought significant changes to email marketing. Designed to boost user privacy, MPP masks users’ IP addresses, preventing senders from pinpointing location data or tracking recipient activity across platforms. It also preloads remote content—like images or tracking pixels—making it impossible to determine whether or when an email was opened.

For marketers relying on open rates to measure email performance, this creates a challenge, especially considering that over 50% of email opens within our audience occur via Apple clients. MPP artificially inflates open rates while simultaneously deflating click-through rates (CTR). However, it’s important to note that while open rates are impacted, raw click data—both gross and unique—remains completely accurate. Email send reports also remain unaffected.

How We’re Responding

At BulletinHealthcare, our Data Insights team has developed sophisticated algorithms to estimate true open activity for Apple users across our healthcare association audiences. If you’d like to receive a custom report with adjusted open rate and CTR data tailored to your campaigns, feel free to reach out to your representative or email us at info@bulletinhealthcare.com.

Why Email Marketing Remains Critical for Healthcare Marketers

Despite MPP’s changes, email continues to be a crucial channel for reaching healthcare professionals (HCPs). Here’s why:

Opted-in audience: Our readers have given their consent to receive our briefings, meaning our audience is 100% deterministic and known.
Bypass ad blockers: While traditional display or social ads can be blocked, emails are delivered directly to the inbox, ensuring your message gets through.
Proven ROI: Numerous third-party studies have shown that email campaigns we’ve executed offer significant returns, with ROI ranging from 4:1 to an impressive 69:1.

To learn more about the importance of email marketing in reaching HCPs, check out our blog post that covers this topic in detail.

Email remains one of the most cost-effective and impactful ways to engage with HCPs. If you want to learn more or need a custom data report, get in touch with our team.