You can’t miss these Apple announcements - they will dramatically change email marketing forever.

If you are a marketer, you have to know about the upcoming Apple iOS15 updates that will change your email marketing and digital marketing strategies in 2021 and beyond.

The world of marketing as we know it is set to be rocked once again; this time, it's our email marketing strategies under the spotlight.

Just when we thought we'd come to terms with Apple's limiting tracking across apps and social media, the tech giant has just announced plans to make similar changes to email tracking in its iOS15 update.

Leaving marketers up in arms yet AGAIN!

As part of it's World Wide Developer's Conference earlier this month, Apple announced two updates you need to be across as a marketer - which doesn't just impact email marketing.

No 1: Apple users can opt out of all tracking for the email list they are subscribed to.

As an email marketer, we embed a tracking pixel in our emails to track subscriber actions and engagement. If an Apple email user opts out, we as marketers can no longer track engagement metrics like open rate.

No open rate doesn't mean the end of the world, as we'll still rely on other email metrics such as click-through rates thanks to our website analytics. And the truth is, the open rate has long been a flawed metric, because it can only be linked to images - so if your subscriber reads your email as text only, it's not measured in your open rate.

Nonetheless, open rate is an email marketing metric we love and rely on, especially when it comes to subject line measurement and testing. So it's something you'll have to factor into your email marketing strategy and measurement for late 2021 and 2022.

With or without an email open rate, you can still grow and build a successful email marketing strategy if you continue to deliver exceptional content. Your subscribers will always look forward to, open and engage in your emails if your content is strong.

No 2: Apple email users can subscribe to emails anonymously using an encrypted email address.

Apple users can opt to further protect their privacy by using a unique anonymous/encrypted email address to subscribe to a new email list. So, as a brand we won’t get a customer’s personal email address, we'll get an apple generated email address such as 924053851@icloud.com. Thus, making it impossible for brands and businesses to identify and track a customer across the different arms of their business using their email address.

As marketers, we rely on an email address to identify our customer. An email address lets us track customer behaviour from email to instore, events to social media, and beyond. Without an identifiable email address, we will not be able to effectively retarget or optimise e-commerce and digital funnels.

Again, this isn't a reason to panic. While this will prove a challenge for online and digital marketing, we will simply need to evolve. It's yet another reason to prepare for - and embrace - the new age of marketing in which we live. An age where privacy reigns supreme, and marketers must embrace content, context and intimate customer insight to succeed.

Representing just over 50% share of email platforms, Apple's iOS15 update will impact email marketing practices from late 2021, and hopefully, you can ensure you're prepared with this knowledge.