How you can establish non-human opening of Apple’s electronic mail privateness

Since it was first announced in June 2021, Twilio SendGrid has worked hard to understand how the introduction of Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) will affect our senders. We spoke to Twilio SendGrid customers to find out what products or features we can deliver to help our senders navigate through what may be turbulent times.

There was no doubt that this introduction would have a huge impact on senders and fundamentally change the way we track the success of e-mail programs. However, careful thought is required to best help our senders manage this change. It’s also important to note that the effects of this change won’t be felt immediately; The introduction of a new operating system takes months, not days.

To better understand what Apple’s “non-human” engagement looks like and how we can identify it, we’re leveraging our unprecedented size. Twilio SendGrid processes over 3 billion messages per day for our customers (over 5 billion on Black Friday) through our cloud email platform, which gives us a significant set of data to analyze. This post is all about what Twilio SendGrid will do for you so that you not only survive, but also survive thrive in the post-MPP world.

MPP and your engagement data

MPP officially launched on September 20 at around 10:00 a.m. PST, and we’ve been testing our hypotheses ever since. What we’ve seen in the first few hours since launch is that email engagement metrics change as expected.

We have confirmed that Apple’s MPP makes it impossible to tell if a real recipient opened your email. Almost every email you send to a recipient using MPP appears to be open. We have also identified several signals that should allow us to precisely identify and mark the “machine opens” generated by MPP.

For more information on Apple’s MPP, check out our blog post which features some of the frequently asked questions about the introduction of MPP.

Further development of Twilio SendGrid in a new MPP landscape

We want to offer our senders the best customer experience to differentiate between real openings and “non-human” openings.

The first step in achieving this is adding a new flag to Open Events in our Event webhook Identifying “non-human” opens up in the coming weeks. This new field will be set to True for open events triggered by Apple systems and false for actual open events caused by humans.

To be clear, we have no intention of bypassing the privacy feature. We strongly believe that privacy settings should be taken into account. However, we aim to report any open activity that is most likely not human so that your actual human engagement figures continue to be useful.

We also strive to develop functionality within the Twilio SendGrid console that will allow our senders to view and segment their open data with or without non-human opening.

Given the seismic shift this represents, we all need to take a step back and take advantage of what doesn’t change: clicks. Seeing engagement through the lens of how recipients click links in message body is a critical glimpse into how content is received today. To understand the net impact of emails on the bottom line, we need to assess whether calls-to-action drive engagement and track click-to-conversion.

For more actionable tips on customizing your email success measurement, check out ours previous blog post, Here’s how to prepare for Apple’s mail privacy.

Next steps for Twilio SendGrid and MPP

As the e-mail landscape changes and evolves, Twilio SendGrid connects with industry groups, analyzes recipient acceptance and the impact on senders, and develops strategies for optimal adaptation and optimization for senders. We will continue to use this information to provide useful tips and develop well-thought-out products and features in subsequent blog posts.

For the latest information on MPP and related Twilio SendGrid product updates, subscribe to our email newsletter, The shovel.