Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection’s Impact on MessageBee Metrics
Apple recently announced ongoing privacy changes, including limiting how email senders can track opens for their emails. While libraries understand the importance of patron privacy, this impact will affect reporting that MessageBee can provide.
What does this mean for your MessageBee reporting? Apple Mail users that opt into the privacy protections will show all emails as opened, whether they were viewed or not. According to email marketing company Litmus, nearly half of email opens happen using Apple’s email client. If you are keeping track of your open rates now, those numbers will soon skew based on the number of Apple Mail users in your population.
For email marketers, open rates can be one measure of engagement. Here are three other ideas to use MessageBee to measure patron engagement through your circulation emails.
Click-Throughs
MessageBee’s reporting tools will show daily reports of user clicks on the various links included in your emails. Most patrons click through to their account or click to see library hours. Using this reporting can help establish a baseline of what patrons find interesting.
Once you have established a baseline, introduce new services and service ideas to see where patrons find interest. MessageBee partner Central Arkansas Library System regularly changes their banners to promote events and can use MessageBee reporting to see engagement through their circulation notices.
Email Only Promotions
MessageBee includes the option to add and schedule promotional material in your notifications. Worthington Libraries in Ohio began promoting their new Library Goods personal shopper program exclusively using MessageBee to measure the impact of their emails. Staff were delighted to find the service being discovered and utilized by patrons as the requests began coming in.
This concept proved that the promotional space within these emails are being seen and valued by their patrons.
Promo Codes
Who doesn’t love a giveaway? As more libraries re-introduce in-person events, using a promo code or coupon included in an email can show how patrons discover your activities. Pair the code with a simple giveaway to incentivize patrons to show up with the email in hand (or on their phone).
You find out how the patron discovered the event, and the patron gets some great library-branded swag.
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