Summary
DuckDuckGo's Email Protection, along with initiatives like Apple's Mail Privacy Protection (MPP), fundamentally changes email marketing. DuckDuckGo's Email Protection is an email forwarding service that removes trackers, while MPP hides IP addresses and masks email opens. This makes open rates unreliable, skewing A/B testing and segmentation. To adapt, marketers should build stronger subscriber relationships, focus on first-party data collection, and prioritize alternative metrics like click-through rates and conversions. List hygiene and compliance with privacy standards are also critical.
Key findings
- Open Rate Unreliability: MPP and similar measures render open rates an unreliable metric for engagement due to inflated numbers and masked user activity.
- Shift to Alternative Metrics: Marketers must shift focus to metrics like click-through rates, website visits, and conversions to accurately measure campaign success.
- Importance of First-Party Data: Collecting first-party and zero-party data becomes crucial for personalized marketing efforts while respecting user privacy.
- Proactive Privacy Measures: DuckDuckGo's privacy initiatives, alongside MPP, indicate a growing trend towards enhanced user privacy in email.
- Need for Stronger Relationships: Building stronger relationships with subscribers through valuable content and personalized experiences is essential.
Key considerations
- Data Collection Strategies: Implement ethical strategies for collecting first-party data with explicit consent.
- Segmentation and Targeting: Adapt segmentation strategies to rely less on open rates and more on engagement metrics and user-provided data.
- Campaign Measurement: Re-evaluate KPIs and focus on metrics that accurately reflect user engagement, such as clicks and conversions.
- Compliance: Stay informed about and comply with evolving privacy regulations and industry standards.
- List Hygiene: Maintain a clean and engaged email list to improve deliverability and campaign performance, reducing the impact of inflated open rates.
What email marketers say
8 marketer opinions
DuckDuckGo's Email Protection and similar privacy initiatives like Apple's Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) significantly impact email marketing by limiting the accuracy of open rate tracking. These services remove trackers and mask user activity, making it harder for marketers to measure engagement traditionally. As a result, marketers are advised to adapt by focusing on building stronger subscriber relationships, collecting first-party data, and prioritizing metrics beyond open rates, such as click-through rates, website visits, and conversions. Maintaining good email list hygiene and providing value to subscribers are also key to navigating these changes.
Key opinions
- Impact on Open Rates: Privacy protections like DuckDuckGo's and Apple's MPP inflate open rates, making them an unreliable metric for gauging engagement.
- Shift in Metrics: Marketers need to shift their focus from open rates to other metrics like click-through rates, website conversions, and replies.
- Importance of First-Party Data: Collecting first-party and zero-party data is crucial for personalization and segmentation in a privacy-focused environment.
- Value Proposition: Providing value to subscribers becomes more important to maintain engagement without relying on traditional tracking methods.
Key considerations
- Relationship Building: Focus on building stronger relationships with subscribers through personalized content and valuable offers.
- List Hygiene: Maintain a clean and engaged email list to improve deliverability and campaign performance.
- Data Collection: Implement strategies for collecting first-party data to understand subscriber preferences and behaviors.
- Alternative Metrics: Prioritize tracking click-through rates, website visits, and conversions to measure campaign success.
- Compliance: Staying up to date with privacy regulations and ensuring email practices are compliant to maintain trust with subscribers.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Sendinblue suggests that due to privacy changes, marketers should focus on providing value to subscribers, personalizing emails based on customer data, and segmenting audiences based on engagement rather than opens.
23 Sep 2022 - Sendinblue
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email on Acid says that Apple's Mail Privacy Protection impacts email marketing by changing how open rates are measured and making it more challenging to personalize emails based on location or device. It encourages marketers to focus on subscriber engagement, list hygiene, and click-through rates.
1 Sep 2024 - Email on Acid
What the experts say
4 expert opinions
DuckDuckGo's email privacy action, and similar initiatives like Apple's Mail Privacy Protection, are prompting a shift in email marketing strategies. While DuckDuckGo's work on privacy predates Apple's announcement, the combined impact emphasizes the need for marketers to prioritize first-party data and consent-based marketing to maintain relevance. A key consequence is the decreasing reliability of open rates as a metric, pushing marketers to focus on clicks and conversions for performance measurement.
Key opinions
- Proactive Privacy Efforts: DuckDuckGo's email privacy work was in progress before the Apple announcement, indicating a broader trend towards enhanced email privacy.
- Shift in Metrics: The focus is shifting from open rates to clicks and conversions due to privacy-related unreliability of open rates.
- Data Prioritization: First-party data and consent-based marketing are becoming crucial for effective email marketing.
Key considerations
- Adaptation: Email marketers must adapt to the changing privacy landscape by embracing new strategies.
- Performance Measurement: Rethink performance measurement: Focus on click-through rates and conversion rates as primary KPIs, rather than open rates.
- Ethical Data: Prioritize ethical data collection practices: Emphasize consent and transparency in data collection.
Expert view
Expert from Spamresource explains that in response to privacy initiatives such as DuckDuckGo's email privacy action, email marketers will need to prioritize first-party data collection and consent-based marketing strategies to maintain relevance and effectiveness.
9 Nov 2024 - Spamresource
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks shares that she may not have gotten the actual gig with DuckDuckGo because she just kept listing problems.
12 May 2025 - Email Geeks
What the documentation says
4 technical articles
Documentation from Apple, Litmus, SparkPost and IAB Tech Lab clarifies that privacy measures like Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) significantly disrupt traditional email marketing strategies. MPP hides IP addresses, masks email opens, and inflates open rates, rendering these metrics unreliable. This impacts A/B testing, segmentation, and location-based targeting. Compliance with privacy standards and a shift towards alternative metrics like clicks and conversions are crucial for adapting to these changes.
Key findings
- IP Masking: MPP hides recipients' IP addresses, hindering location-based targeting.
- Inflated Open Rates: MPP inflates open rates by pre-loading email content, making them unreliable.
- Impact on A/B Testing: A/B testing based on open rates is no longer accurate due to MPP.
- Segmentation Challenges: Segmentation based on open behavior becomes unreliable.
- Industry Standard: Email marketers must comply with industry standards for privacy, including consumer consent and data usage policies.
Key considerations
- Focus on Alternative Metrics: Prioritize tracking clicks, conversions, and other engagement metrics.
- Adapt Segmentation Strategies: Re-evaluate segmentation strategies to rely less on open behavior.
- Comply with Privacy Standards: Ensure email marketing practices adhere to industry privacy standards and regulations.
- Transparency with users: Communicate clearly to your users regarding your data policies.
Technical article
Documentation from IAB Tech Lab discusses industry standards for privacy, including consumer consent and data usage policies. It is important for email marketers to comply with these standards in light of privacy changes.
17 Jun 2024 - IAB Tech Lab
Technical article
Documentation from Litmus explains that Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) impacts email marketers by skewing open rates, affecting A/B testing based on opens, and making segmentation based on open behavior unreliable. They suggest focusing on other metrics like clicks and conversions.
18 Dec 2024 - Litmus
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