How iOS 14.5 is affecting email marketing databases

Email marketing has been a huge part of digital marketing for the past few years – but Apple’s new iOS 14.5 could be damaging to the way businesses use email to reach customers. Now that users are able to opt out of data tracking on apps like Facebook and Instagram, a lot of marketers are already feeling the impact on their email marketing databases. Here’s what business owners are saying – and what it could mean for your own marketing strategy.

The ability of Facebook and Instagram to target specific consumer groups has been one of the more effective advertising strategies over the years. Data tracking has allowed these social media platforms to record users’ online activity, which gives marketers insight into what consumers are looking at and searching for. It has helped marketers and business owners build up databases of consumers to target using email marketing. With the recent option of blocking data tracking, marketers are having a more difficult time compiling information for their databases.

Before the personalisation offered by data tracking, consumers were well trained in the art of ignoring marketing emails – they were generally thought of as being slightly annoying, inbox clogging junk mail. However, with the introduction of data tracking, marketers could make sure the right emails were being sent to the right consumers. This caused a huge shift in the way consumers interacted with email marketing; they were now portals to an online world tailored to their exact tastes and preferences. In fact, 2020 was email marketing’s best year in history. What will become of email marketing now?

Don’t worry – experts haven’t declared email marketing dead quite yet. Businesses and marketers are advised to analyse the way in which their customers are interacting with their marketing emails. This will provide deep insight into your email marketing strategy – what works? What doesn’t? What exactly about your emails are consumers liking? Which consumer groups are interacting with your emails, and which ones aren’t? This may seem like it requires a little more elbow grease than simple data tracking required (you’re right, it does) – but with the lack of data-tracked insight available, this will be the key to ensuring your emails are reaching the right audiences.

Social media pros are also encouraging businesses to expand into other, similar areas of marketing, such as SMS marketing. While SMS marketing doesn’t offer as many insights as emails do, they are on the rise as a popular form of marketing. It doesn’t require open rates and has actually been proven in many cases to increase interaction with other marketing touch points such as emails and social media ads.

Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater – the world of data tracking is changing, but it doesn’t mean you need a whole new marketing game plan. Just be prepared to put in a little more work, especially to begin with, and explore new marketing strategies that can build on the ones you already know are effective.

At Zib Digital, we are experts in email marketing. If you want to level up your marketing strategy, get in touch with us today.