How the iOS 18 Update Will Impact Email Marketing

If you haven’t seen by now, Apple is currently releasing their next big software update, iOS 18. The update became available on September 16, 2024, and includes a myriad of enhancements and updates to everyone’s favorite Apple products. Apple boasts that this major update brings in new ways to personalize your iPhone with deeper customizations to the Home Screen, Control Center, and more. The Photos app has been completely redesigned, and soon there will be additional features added to Messages and Mail.

However, the biggest impact to digital marketers comes with the newly introduced Apple Intelligence, set to release in October and November 2024. This personal intelligence system utilizes the power of generative AI models and personal context to provide greater value to iPhone users while also protecting privacy and security.

The Apple Intelligence feature is only rolling out on these types of devices for now:

How will iOS 18 impact digital marketing?

Let’s get down to it–what is Apple Intelligence exactly and how does it impact marketers? In a nutshell, Apple Intelligence is marketed as AI for the rest of us. Through a series of iPhone enhancements, Apple is putting the power of generative AI at our fingertips with easy-to-use integrations such as writing tools, message and email reminders, image editors and creators, updated abilities for Siri, and more privacy protection. While these tools are all exciting and should offer more value and control to the iPhone user, it’s the email updates, in particular that will affect digital marketing moving forward.

Set to release later this fall, Apple Mail will begin doing a couple of things:

• Removing customized preview text and replacing it with random snippets from the email body. Email marketers will have no control over what text populates in the preview text for any email opened in Apple Mail. Early testing that we’ve seen shows that preview text often has absolutely nothing to do with email content and does nothing but confuse the user.

Image Source: Jay Schwedelson at SubjectLine.com

• Utilize AI to filter all emails into four new categories: Primary, Updates, Promotions, and Transactions. For an email marketer, the Promotions category will essentially be the kiss of death when it comes to open rates and viewability, as your email will be swimming in a sea filled with other promotional materials. Instead, we want to focus on getting our emails into the Primary and Updates inboxes.

So, why does this matter? 

56% of users utilize the Apple mail app on their iPhone instead of other downloaded apps such as Gmail or Outlook. Because this app comes preloaded on your iPhone and integrates with all Apple products, it tends to be the easiest option. Therefore, how your emails showcase and get filtered really matters when it comes to open rates and, ultimately revenue. 

Tips & ticks to help combat the iOS 18 mail updates

While we can’t stop the iOS 18 mail updates from rolling out, we can add a few new tricks to our marketing toolbox to help get our emails seen, opened, and ultimately clicked on. 

Utilize your “From: Address” as an extension of the subject line

That’s right, the From: [Hotel Title] is valuable real estate and should be used to expand upon the subject line and email content. Instead of keeping that piece generic with your hotel’s name, include extra verbiage, such as announcing a Flash Sale at [Your Hotel] or Fall Getaways at [Hotel Name] to boost your subject line. The best part? You can change your From: Address as many times as you want for every email, and it won’t impact deliverability. So why not give it a try? With preview text going away, this is the perfect way to get more controlled verbiage into your customer’s inboxes.

Pro tip: You don’t even NEED to include your full hotel name as the From: Address. Think outside the box and try something new this year!

Include AI trigger words to email subject lines

Similar to trigger words for the spam filter, early testers have been able to identify trigger words for Apple’s new AI capabilities when it comes to categorizing your emails into Primary, Updates, Transactions, and Promotions. Sourced from the WorldData Research 2024 Performance Report, the following phrases and words have been shown to help Apple’s AI push your emails into the Primary and Updates sections.

Image Source: Jay Schwedelson at SubjectLine.com

While these words and phrases don’t need to be your main focus, they can help bolster your hotel’s email efforts. 

As we stated earlier, the iOS 18 update is now available, but the Apple Intelligence features won’t roll out until October and November, giving us some time to prepare our strategies for the future. If you need help with your email marketing, you can trust the experts at GCommerce.