At WWDC 2021, Apple has announced a series of features that will affectively end key targeted advertising features online and within email marketing. As a good friend messaged us and said that Apple’s upcoming fall software updates are probably making “Facebook and Google NAUSEOUS right now”.
Why Does Apple Matter so Much?
While Android commands a much higher marketshare, Apple’s iPhone has market share with key demographics:
- iPhone users tend to be more affluent, earning 40% more than the Android users on average.
- iOS has a greater share of the 18–24-year-old market.
- Women are more likely to have iPhones than Android phones.
- Apple users are more likely to have degrees in higher education than Android users.
These stats show that if Apple crack downs on advertising technology, businesses and organizations that are using targeted advertising methods are going to question the effectiveness of their advertising efforts. From what we saw in the WWDC Keynote on Monday, Apple is cracking down hard.
What Does Mean for Online Advertising?
It depends on what kind of advertising you have been doing online. If you’ve been working with McNair Media on your online advertising, you are safe and you have been safe for years now. McNair Media crazy self and using intent-based advertising methods and not relying on targeted methods. We believe that targeted advertising has not been effective for years now and we do not recommend it to our clients. If you don’t do advertising with McNair Media, you should ask your advertiser what percentage of your advertising budget they are using towards targeted advertising like Google’s Display Ads and Facebook’s Audience Network. Our personal belief is that if you’re spending on these, you are wasting your money.
So What Happens with My Email Marketing?
One of the key features that the leading email marketing services use to track campaign success is open rates and click through rates. They utilize a pixel tracking technology that recipients of the email do not even see. However, if someone opens an email using Apple’s native Mail app on an iPhone, iPad or Mac this fall, you will not be able to capture that data on that recipient.
With our in-house email marketing service, we don’t rely on features like tracking pixels. We also employ a different set of key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of your email marketing efforts. These KPI’s don’t rely on knowing open rates, so this update will not affect us. Also, a nice perk is that a new website with McNair Media also includes our email marketing service. If you’d like more information, reach out to us!
Market Research is More Important Than Ever
Even if targeted advertising worked (we don’t believe that the mass collecting your customer’s user data does), market research is more important now than ever. In our opinion, market research should be the first thing at any potential business owner should do before spending any money or starting the process of looking for a location. Having an understanding of your market will guide you in how to create your business plan, give you a better picture of what your funding should look like in the overall structure of your business. Not doing market research could cost you dearly.
