Optimizing your Email Strategy for the Apple iOS18 Update

The email marketing landscape is always shifting, but recent years have been especially turbulent with changes like Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) and Yahoogle*. Now, Apple’s iOS 18 is stepping in with game-changing updates that reshape how emails are sorted, viewed, and engaged within Apple Mail. These updates impact how brands can connect with Apple’s vast user base, which accounts for over 53% of email opens according to Litmus. To stay competitive, email marketers must ensure more now than ever that they refine their strategies for visibility and engagement. In this post, we’ll explore these new changes and how to optimize your email campaigns for success.

Inbox Sorting: Embrace the Promotions Tab

iOS 18’s inbox categorization, following Gmail’s footsteps, sorts emails into tabs: Primary, Transactions, Updates, and Promotions. While many marketing emails will land in the Promotions tab, this placement isn’t negative and doesn’t have to mean lower engagement. The Promotions tab is a natural place for customers to explore offers, learn about products, and engage with brands—when approached thoughtfully, it can be a powerful channel for meaningful brand interactions.

• Make the Promotions Tab Work for You: Focus on delivering valuable, relevant offers to a carefully targeted audience rather than your entire list. This approach builds trust with subscribers by providing offers they’ll find genuinely useful, rather than overwhelming them with generic promotions.
• Personalize Your “From” Name for Greater Recognition: Using a personalized “From” name (e.g., “Sophia from [Brand]”) can help your emails feel more approachable and familiar, which can improve engagement regardless of which tab they land in.
• Balance Promotional and Value-add Content: Create valuable content that provides more than just sales promotions. Build trust and encourage engagement by sharing educational tips, insider information, or tutorials that enhance your customers’ experience with your brand.

AI-Generated Email Summaries: Craft AI-Friendly Content

Apple’s AI-driven summaries will replace preheader text, automatically previewing email content. Poorly structured emails may lead to confusing or incomplete previews, so optimizing for AI readability is key.

• Use Alt Text Effectively: Descriptive alt text helps AI summarize images, improving accessibility and clarity.
• Balance Text and Images: Avoid image-only emails, as AI may struggle with summary accuracy. A balanced mix ensures AI captures the core message.

Automatic Reply Suggestions: Encourage Positive Interaction

With iOS 18, users may see automatic reply suggestions like “I’m interested” or “Unsubscribe.” To avoid prompting unsubscribes, ensure emails provide clear value.

• Focus on Value and Personalization: Craft relevant, personalized content to reduce disengagement.
• Use Engaging CTAs: Include clear CTAs like “Reply for more details” or “Take our survey” to encourage positive AI-suggested responses.

Maximizing your Inbox Visibility

With iOS 18, Apple introduces tools that can boost email visibility by prioritizing high-value content, enhancing brand recognition with logos, and grouping message threads for a cleaner inbox view.

Priority Messages Bumped to the Top

Emails deemed important—like event reminders or time-sensitive information—will now appear at the top of Apple inboxes. For email marketers, this feature emphasizes the need to prioritize high-value, relevant content that engages users immediately. Messages that don’t meet these criteria risk being deprioritized and overlooked.

• Subject Line Optimization: Use clear, compelling subject lines that convey urgency or relevance to increase the chance of being prioritized.
• Content Structure: Structure content so that AI can easily identify the core message. Place the most important information at the top of your email and use clear, concise language to highlight the core message. Additionally, break up content into easily digestible sections with subheadings, bullet points, and straightforward language. This structure not only improves readability for users but also helps AI identify and prioritize key information, making the email more likely to be surfaced as important.

Message Summaries Grouped by Sender

iOS18 may group resends with the original message, reducing their visibility as both versions could be treated as part of the same thread. This makes it essential to vary the content of follow-up emails and be intentional with inbox saturation to ensure each message stands out.

• Update Email Components: Alter subject lines, images, or headlines in resends to create a fresh experience and avoid blending into previous messages.
• Segment for Relevance: Create segments like high-engagers, at-risk subscribers, and non-engagers to tailor messaging and frequency.
• Target Smaller Groups: Instead of resending to your entire list, consider targeting smaller segments to improve personalization and reduce inbox fatigue.

Brand Recognition with Branded Mail

Through Apple Business Connect, companies can now display their logo and brand name alongside their emails in Apple Mail and iCloud Mail. Branded Mail makes messages instantly recognizable and can lead to higher engagement.

• Set Up Apple Business Connect: Complete Apple’s verification process to enable your logo in inboxes, increasing immediate brand recognition.
• Consistent Branding: Ensure alignment across channels for cohesive and professional brand identity.

Privacy-First Metrics: Shift to Engagement-Based Tracking

Since the introduction of Mail Privacy Protection in 2021, which restricts open rate tracking, marketers have begun to focus more on engagement metrics such as clicks, conversions, and web traffic. While this shift isn’t entirely new, it serves as a good reminder to look beyond just the open rate when evaluating success.

• Focus on Clicks: Track click-through rates and conversions to measure true engagement.
• Optimize UTM Tracking: Use well-structured UTM parameters to follow user journeys from email to web, ensuring reliable data collection and visibility.
• Monitor Web Traffic: Track how much of your website traffic is driven by email campaigns to assess overall impact.

As AI-driven features reshape the email marketing landscape and the focus on subscriber experience intensifies, continuous optimization is essential. By refining subject lines, personalizing content, and leveraging tools like Branded Mail, brands can navigate iOS 18’s changes and drive strong engagement.

* “Yahoogle” is a term referring to the simultaneous updates made by Yahoo and Google to their email platforms in 2024, creating significant changes in email deliverability, inbox placement, and engagement metrics.