Welcome to Vol.31 of Email Advice in Your Inbox!

Hiya, Friend! It's good to be back in your inbox 💌


This week, we're talking about Apple and how a few recent update shenanigans will soon impact email senders.

Apple is notorious for changing the way readers interact with their inboxes, following their previous iOS 17 updates.


Learn how to send better emails to your Apple audience after iOS 18, along with our regular resources, expert insights and examples you're here for.

 

Here's what you'll learn this week
 

• iOS 18's impact your emails
   

• This week's top email resources
   

• Email expert practical tip of the week
   

• Smart email senders we're learning from
   

• The fun stuff: Dark humour does it in advertising 
  
   

Let's do this 🚀

You guessed it...Apple is changing things up 🙄

It seems the iOS 18 Apple update hasn't fallen far from the last iOS update's tree (see what I did there? 😉).

Though these changes are designed to enhance Apple users' experiences, it does have some impact on email senders who are sending emails to audiences using iOS 18.
 

These updates are centred around Apple's AI-powered tools and a few other design changes.

For email, however, the enhanced Apple Intelligence will significantly change how Apple Mail users have email previews and preheader text displayed.

There's also the introduction of category tabs for Apple Mail inboxes, which has likely been coming for a while now (think tabs like Gmail, Outlook, etc).
 

Features are being staggered at this stage, with the full rollout expected in iOS 18.2. 

Today we'll look at what these changes mean and what you can do about them in your email strategy.
 

It's more than 10 years later than Gmail, but it seems Apple finally got the memo and is finally adding category tabs to inboxes, Apple Mail has followed suit.

This may seem insignificant, but considering the fact that nearly half of emails opened are on Apple devices, you may want to take notice.

Apple Mail will sort emails into five tabs that mimic Gmail's structure, including Primary, Promotions, Updates, and Transactional tabs.

Should you worry? Maybe don't panic just yet.
 

Readers are already quite familiar with inbox tabs.

This survey, for example, found that nearly half of Gmail users have tabs enabled on their accounts, with more than half checking the Promotions tab daily.

And, this can have some benefits for your emails:

1. You'll get more intentional email opens: Folks visiting the Promotions tab often have buying intent. Fewer opens to clear inboxes from non-interested readers are always good.

2. You'll build better relationships: No one enjoys being promoted to all the time. Here's an opportunity to keep relevant emails in the inbox, lowering unsubscribe rates and enhancing reader inbox experiences.

See, it's not all bad. Before we talk about how to factor this into your strategy, let's chat about one more slightly more impactful change coming with iOS 18...
 

Something a little more impactful to email senders is Apple's introduction of AI summaries for email.
 

There are two things these AI summaries will do:

1. First, Apple will use AI summaries to replace the preview/ preheader text that often appears just below your subject line in the inbox.
   
   These are said may become the default setting, but users will likely have the chance to turn that off.
    
2. Second, after an email has been opened in Apple Mail, readers will be able to click a button and get an AI summary of the email content.

As you can tell, there's a big push by Apple to enhance their inbox experience, but this may well have an impact on the way strategies around content and preview text in emails are approached.

And that's not all...

It is slated that Apple Intelligence will highlight priority emails based on deemed importance (we have no idea how this will work yet), which means you may wind up down the queue if your content lacks certain elements.

You can now see why putting focus on certain key areas (and perhaps lessening the focus on elements like preheader/ preview text) might mean the difference in your engagement with Apple iOS 18 users.
 

This might help 👇
 

There are a few things we recommend you focus on to work best with these new updates:
 

• Don't neglect your preview text: Other inboxes will still certainly see this, but don't become too reliant on them to complete your subject lines either.
  
  If you are able to track inbox usage, you can segment out Apple users and drop their preview/ preheader text, but this may take some time, so rather keep it simple for now.
  
   
• Set alt text on images: This should already be a standard practice to enhance accessibility, but if you're sending emails with images, you'll want the AI reader to know what's in your images.
  
  These are crucial if you have image-heavy emails.
  
   
• Look after your text and copy structure: Lead with important information and good headings.
  
  Also try and use less graphical or image-based text blocks, and use your HTML text well.
  
   
• Personalise and segment: We know this already, but sending content relevant to segments and including content relevant to the reader might have the greatest impact on your ability to use AI summaries to your advantage.
  
  If you're looking to avoid certain tabs, you'll also want to focus on the type of emails, the timing and intent you have behind your strategy, so ensure to plan.

It's still too early to tell what sort of impact this will have, but forewarned is forearmed they say, and we hope you'll use these to aid your email success.
 

Will you change your email strategy?

It's over to you.

Considering these updates, we know a few folks who will be changing their email strategy.

Will that be you, Friend?
 

Let us know👇

Email resources of the week

Cool articles and resources to help you become a better email sender
 

Email Expert Practical Tip of the Week

Today's tip is from expert email marketing and deliverability expert, Matt Brown.

This week, we're changing things up! Matt was featured on Monica Badiu's podcast discussing all things email deliverability.

If you will be sending BFCM emails, this one is for you! Matt covers a few great insights for keeping emails out of junk while ramping up your email volumes.


PS: Sign up for Matt's brilliant newsletter here👈

Smart email senders we're learning from

We believe that learning from some of the greatest in the industry is one of the best ways to improve.

Here are three emails we found that followed sound email principles or used innovative strategies to nail their email goals.

Take a look at this week's best 👌
 

Some more (non-email) fun to make your day better

We're fans of using the darker side of humour in adverts 😏

Well, there are limits, of course, but this, uhm...creative ad takes the cake this week.


We're fans of pushing the boundaries. Risky or not, at least it's entertaining, right? (Sorry Grandpa).


(PS: Thanks to Neal O'Grady for this one).

These emails are proudly made possible by

Africa's best email service agency and email marketing platform

Before we go! Remember, we help businesses and content creators, just like you, win at email. How? Here are three ways we can help:

Get the guide! We've spent 200+ hours compiling over 250 pages covering everything you need to launch and win at email. Find out more here. 

Sponsor this newsletter! Keen to share your business in front of hundreds of email experts? Get in touch to discuss sponsorships here.

Contribute your knowledge! We're looking to feature experts in future Volumes. Have an idea to share? Let us know here.

PS: If you've been sent this newsletter and want to sign up, hit this link