How to identify iOS15 Mail Privacy Protection opens
You will learn
Learn how to identify Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) opens in your Klaviyo segments, including how to build segments that aren’t inflated by these automatic opens. Head to Klaviyo’s blog to learn more about iOS15 and MPP.
Use the Apple Privacy Open flag to distinguish MPP opens from other recorded opens when building your segments.
The Apple Privacy Open flag is available for Opened Email events occurring on or after November 20, 2021. Opens before this release may not include this information in their metadata.
Identify MPP opens
Opened Email events can contain a property called Apple Privacy Open, which is either True or False. If Apple Privacy Open is True, it means the message was opened on a device with MPP turned on. Therefore, the open event may be attributable to Apple’s MPP, and doesn’t necessarily reflect a true email open. In these cases, the message could have been opened by the inbox or by a recipient, and there’s no way to differentiate between the two.
If Apple Privacy Open is False, Klaviyo did not identify the event as an MPP open. This does not guarantee that a person opened and read the message.
To add an Apple Privacy Open condition to a segment:
- Navigate to Audience > Lists & segments.
- Open an existing segment and click Edit definition. To start a new segment, select Create > Segment and enter a name. If a naming panel opens, click Create segment to continue to the builder.
- Select What someone has done (or not done) > Opened Email, then choose how many opens and the time period to check.
- Click Add filter and select Apple Privacy Open. Choose is true to count MPP opens or is false to exclude them from this condition.
- Click Create segment for a new segment or Update segment for an existing segment to save the definition.
The sample segments below offer examples of how you can use this property in your own account.
Exclude MPP opens from your engaged segment
If your engaged segment follows the recommendation in our article How to Create an Engaged Segment, you can exclude MPP opens by adding the filter where Apple Privacy Open is false to the Opened Email criteria. The segment below includes all subscribers who have opened or clicked an email in the last 30 days (excluding MPP opens) or subscribed in the last 15 days. A profile with MPP opens can still qualify through a non-MPP open, a click, or a recent subscription.
Find profiles with recorded MPP opens
To find profiles with at least 1 recorded MPP open, select Opened Email > at least once > over all time and add the filter Apple Privacy Open > is true. This includes profiles with a recorded MPP open since tracking began. It does not include people who enabled MPP but have no recorded MPP opens.
Identify unengaged MPP openers
Use the following conditions to identify profiles with recorded MPP opens but no recent non-MPP opens or email clicks. Choose a time period that fits how often you send, and use it for both the non-MPP open and click conditions. Consider excluding this segment from your campaign sends, while remembering that MPP prevents you from knowing whether these recipients read your emails.
- Opened Email > at least once > over all time, with Apple Privacy Open > is true.
- AND Opened Email > zero times in your chosen time period, with Apple Privacy Open > is false.
- AND Clicked Email > zero times in the same time period.
About MPP opens
With the release of iOS 15, macOS Monterey, watchOS 8, and iPadOS 15, Apple Mail users have the option to turn on MPP. When one of your recipients has this feature turned on, all images in the messages they receive will be preemptively loaded, whether the recipient opens the email or not.
Because opens are tracked when a tracking pixel (a small, nearly-invisible image) is loaded, this causes a false open event to be tracked in Klaviyo. This, in turn, artificially inflates your open rates and makes it harder to identify subscribers who are truly engaged.
Klaviyo identifies these Apple Privacy opens so you can exclude them from engagement criteria in your segments and avoid treating automatic opens as evidence of engagement.
If a subscriber has set up multiple inboxes (e.g., a Gmail inbox and an Apple Mail inbox) for the same email address, you may see both Apple Privacy opens and non-MPP open events (i.e., Opened Email events with Apple Privacy Open set to False) for the same message.
Additional resources
- Understanding how segments update
Learn how segments (i.e., dynamic groups of profiles in Klaviyo) update. Most segments update in close to real time, and profiles move in and out of segments based on whether or not their interactions with your brand match the conditions you set. Once you create a segment, it pulls members from all people in your account based on the definition you establish.
- How to configure custom reports to track Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) opens
Learn how to track and analyze artificially inflated Apple Mail opens in Klaviyo custom reports.With the release of iOS15, macOS Monterey, iPadOS 15, and WatchOS 8 in September 2021, Apple also released their new feature Mail Privacy Protection (MPP). Apple Mail users can choose to opt into MPP while using Apple Mail. MPP changes how Klaviyo receives open rate data for your emails by pre-fetching our tracking pixel, and thus causing some Klaviyo analytics to show potentially higher email opens.For your subscribers that have specifically opted into MPP, any email delivered to their device using the Apple Mail app will see open rates affected (e.g., connecting a Gmail account to Apple Mail that has opted into MPP would still fall under affected opens). Anything email open showing as an “Apple Privacy Open” comes from a subscriber using a device with MPP enabled, whether or not they have opened the email. We have no way of distinguishing between a true human open and an automated open when MPP is enabled.