iOS15 and Privacy – What is the proper way to measure engagement today with new Privacy trends?
What New Privacy Trends & Settings Mean for You
Last year, we offered a quick debrief of what updated privacy policies and features mean for iOS users. This will not be the last time that there will be updates like that one, as privacy centers itself as a top concern for the public as we all spend more and more time on our phones and online.
What this means for dealerships, though, is that the way you measure engagement of email marketing campaigns in particular must adapt with the changing policies of your customers’ devices. As open rates and location data phase out, new ways of measurement must phase in.
What Outsell Is Doing
For our clients, we are committed to providing the most reliable reporting to you–no matter what barriers get placed in our way. Alongside our partners, we are figuring out how to stay ahead of updates like iOS 15, with the data that we already have on your customers. We have figured out how to identify those with iOS 15 and to remove “open” data from those customer profiles only. Since iOS mail providers will send back a data signal that the email has been opened with every one of their emails, whether truly opened or not, it is imperative to remove that data so that it does not skew or inflate the numbers over and above what they truly are.
As always, our focus remains on real engagement from active shoppers in your market. This means that our emails have clear calls-to-action, and that those clicks take users to your website–the best place for your shoppers to begin, continue, or wind-down their car-shopping journey. The most relevant gauge on how our email campaigns are doing will remain metrics that are collected from Google Analytics on your website. We are simply a tool to get them there.
Hold Your Vendors Accountable
We know that we’re not your only vendor in the email-marketing space, and we’re okay with that. But we want to equip you with the best possible tools to make sure that your other vendors are making similar shifts in their strategy on your behalf. Here are 3 quick questions to ask your vendor:
- How are you adjusting your metrics based on iOS 15 privacy updates?
This is a great question to ask especially if you are still receiving reports at the end of a campaign that include open rates as a measure of engagement. If they do not have the technology to exclude false iOS 15 opens, then they need to provide deeper metrics for you, because their open rate will be skewed otherwise.
- Are you using UTM tags on every link?
This is an important question to ask for you to be able to see the email campaign traffic that is clicking through to your website. However, you want to make sure that every link is properly tagged, not just for source and medium, but also for campaign so that you can see how every link in the email performs (or doesn’t).
- How are you targeting and personalizing each and every email?
Because we cannot rely on someone opening the email for us to measure their engagement with it, we must focus more on the content within each email. Your vendor should be personalizing these emails based on where they are in the customer journey and offering multiple CTAs throughout the email to provide the most return upon your investment in sending the email.
If you need help reassessing your email marketing campaigns based on new privacy trends, or want us to help you more strongly word your email to any other email marketing vendors you might need to ask these questions to, let us know and we are more than happy to help you.