iOS 15 Changes How We Have to Track Newsletter Engagement

The way media companies validate the success of newsletters has to evolve. Historically, we have used open rates as our primary metric, but this is becoming increasingly complicated. Unfortunately, many media operators I know are not spending more time looking at this, and it will impact their businesses.

In September, Apple rolled out iOS 15, including its Mail Privacy Protection. This did two things for user privacy. First, it masked IP addresses, which was annoying but manageable. Second, it opened all images up in the background, which completely screwed up open rates.