In forcesince 20 Sep 2021 · Global · Apple
Open rate is not a measurement any more
Apple Mail Privacy Protection pre-fetches images through a proxy, firing your tracking pixel whether or not a human looked. Apple accounts for 64.66 percent of all measured opens, and MPP affects roughly 55 to 60 percent of them. In late November 2025 Gmail image loading fell by about a third, and senders saw open rates drop 30 percent quarter on quarter with no matching fall in clicks or revenue.
Who this applies to
Everyone. It matters most if any segmentation, send-time optimisation or sunset policy in your account is keyed on opens.
What to do
- Move engagement segmentation onto clicks, site visits and purchases.
- Stop reporting open rate to clients as a performance metric. Report it as a deliverability smoke alarm at best.
- Audit your sunset and re-engagement flows. Most were written when opens meant something and now suppress the wrong people.
What happens if you do not
Not a rule anyone enforces, but it silently invalidates a large amount of routine practice, which is why it belongs here.
Sources
Related
History of this page
- Added the November 2025 Gmail image-loading decline.
- Added.