Desktop open rate 98%, mobile 2%- how is this possible?

[LittleSunflower]

Hello, I'm trying to work on fundraising campaigns for a non-profit and all of our emails show that an overwhelming majority are read on desktops which seems inaccurate.  I've looked up the industry standard and its showing that as many as 60-80% of emails are now read on mobile, but ours are at the 2% level which concerns me.  Any insight as to why this is occurring, or how we can plan for this discrepancy?  It seems like either something isn't working, or we are missing a large audience that we should be capturing via mobile devices.

Thanks for any insight!

[William_A · Accepted solution]

Hello @LittleSunflower ,

While a significant difference in desktop vs. mobile opens can be a result of an account's contacts demographics or even their industry, based on your data I don't believe that's the case. Such an extremely low mobile open report is much more likely the result of Apple's privacy changes, since that corresponds to when we first started receiving reports of these more extreme open differences. 

It is something our devs are keeping an eye on, however we're ultimately beholden to what Apple allows to be reported back to us for opens, clicks, etc. from programs using the iOS. For more info regarding Apple's privacy changes, and how it can affect reporting, I'd recommend taking a look at this article.

[LittleSunflower]

Thank you so much William D- I have talked to 4 different agents at Constant Contact and none of them could provide a valid reason for the discrepancy.  Your reasoning makes complete sense and I appreciate you taking the time to explain the new Apple algorithm that affects our mobile vs. desktop open rates.  Thank you!

[UPSA]

I am having the same skewed results a year later - 97% desktop vs. 3% mobile. The answer doesn't appear to address the question, other than the coincidence in timing. If consumers use the Apple Mail app on their phones, the same preloading of images and skewed open information would come from the phones too, regardless of ESP. Are we to assume almost no one uses the Apple Mail app on their phone and instead use the branded app for another mail service (i.e., Gmail) almost exclusively? Or that my user base has very few iPhone owners? This is unlikely in New York City where iPhones are extremely popular. Any new ideas?

[William_A]

Hi @UPSA ,

The problem is that Apple's privacy protection effectively makes mobile app opens triggered by their email program result in desktop opens, not mobile. That's what my earlier response, and the linked article, are referring to.

Ultimately, your data is going to be skewed if a large amount of your user base utilizes Apple Mail to receive and open emails.

[MarkW1082]

William,

My client is having this issue as well.

I read the article you linked to, and it raises two questions. 

1) The article says the MPP policy is only related to Apple's native mail app, but many people use Gmail. What about those stats? 

2) If this were true, and the discrepancy were entirely due to Apple's privacy policy, then what about Android users? Does Apple's policy also apply to them? 

3) If Constant Contact's mobile vs desktop stats are known to be off, why do you even show Mobile vs Desktop stats at all?

Thank you.

[William_A]

Hello @MarkW1082 ,

1. If the contact is using an iOS version that has this implementation, then it can affect other email apps. 
2. Unless the Android user is using Apple's mail app or managed to get iOS on their Android somehow, this wouldn't apply to Android users.
3. This is only going to be skewed for iPhone users.

Please see the linked article, or check with Apple's support if you have further questions on how their privacy policies may affect open / click tracking functionalities for emails.