Apple controls more than half of email provider market share. This means that when they introduce changes it will affect overall email data and odds are Google will follow suit.
In its most recent iOS update, Apple announced two very big changes. The first is where certain emails will land. If you’re a Gmail user, you’re already familiar with the Promotions tab/inbox. Apple is adding one called “Updates” and your organization’s enewsletters may land there.
Good side: Everyone’s inboxes are overflowing with emails and inbox visibility is a problem for many nonprofits. There will be fewer emails in the Updates inbox and therefore more chance for your emails to be seen.
Bad side: Some people may never look at that Updates tab and only concentrate on their Inbox. This may mean your enewsletters are never even seen.
Solution: Add a quick paragraph in your welcome email for new subscribers about how to move your emails from Updates to the regular Inbox. Mention it on social media. If you speak to someone on your list who hasn’t opened your emails in awhile, ask if they’ve been receiving the emails. That may be the trigger needed for them to view the Updates tab.
The second change Apple announced has major consequences for all of us to how our audience views our emails. Let’s dive in.
Will they even open our emails?
The new iOS update allows people to see an AI generated summary of the email right in their inbox without needing to open the email. That means they can view the summary and if the summary doesn’t interest them, they won’t bother to open the email!
This AI summary will replace the preheader text. People can see the summary in the inbox or if they open the email, they can click “summarize” and get a summary of the email. So maybe they open but after reading the summary they decide it’s not worth their time to skim and scan the full email.
A lost chance for a click thru and conversion. (Read a good summary of the email changes Apple has introduced.)
To be fair…
- Gmail already has something like this for those with Google Workspace- you click on Gemini and it’ll produce an AI summary of an email. However, this is less of a big deal because Google Workspace costs money so it’s only for a small percent of Gmail users.
- You can turn off the AI summary in Apple Mail.
But the unknown here is how many people will turn it off and how many people will use the AI summary feature to make browsing and scrolling their inbox even less time consuming (fewer emails to open).
Getting people to open your emails is hard enough. But a summary in the inbox could make it exponentially harder. Oy!
But this pain point is about to get worse.
What if the summary sucks?
For every Apple Mail subscriber on your list, your content is now at the mercy of the AI generated summary.
What happens if it scans your enewsletter and the summary sucks? What if the summary is inaccurate? What if it fails to pull out the most important and relevant facts and leaves those out of the summary?
This is a HUGE problem for everyone- every organization that sends an enews and enews publishers like me.
There’s also the possibility, according to this source, that summaries will change and differ from person to person. That could certainly have an effect on opens, clicks and conversions. Of course it could have a positive effect. Time will tell.
Speaking of time, it’ll be awhile before we know how the AI summary is changing how people interact with emails. My guess is in 6-12 months we’ll start seeing analysis from companies who calculate data based on billions of emails sent and received.
But until then we’re at the mercy of AI and whatever email summary it produces. This also means I can’t offer you true and tried solutions because I haven’t seen the necessary data and analysis.
This is a major pain point for those of you (and I hope this is everyone!) using email to boost your fundraising and marketing efforts. But I hate being in survival mode, so let me offer some suggestions for what you can do right now and for the foreseeable future.
Possible Solutions
For starters, watch this video so you can understand how this AI summary feature looks on an iPhone and watch this one to see how it looks on an iPad. Know what some of your users are experiencing and doing.
Here are three suggestions to help:
Personalization: Wanna raise more money? Strengthen relationships? You need to personalize your fundraising and marketing materials. If you know what an individual subscriber likes, dislikes and preferences are, your emails will hit the target and mobilize people to action. That means that people will WANT to open your emails more often than not. When they see your name/name of organization in the inbox, they may be more likely to ignore the summary and open the email.
Inbox visibility: With overflowing inboxes, how do you get people to open your emails? Make sure who it’s from is familiar- name of staff, name of organization or both. Additionally your subject line is important. 35% of people decide whether to open an email based on subject line alone. Know what? Subject lines matter! A good subject line could “offset” a bad AI summary and still make someone wanna open the email.
On top: One of the solutions offered in the articles linked above suggests putting your most important ideas and content at the top of your emails. Does this work? 🤷♂️ But now you know why I have a TL;DR section at the top. I put my own summary with the most important points at the top. If that helps the AI summary be better, great.
Email can help your nonprofit thrive and grow. My feeling is that Apple’s email changes are going to affect how people interact with email. I’ll stay on top of it and when more info becomes available I’ll share it here.
