Marketers brace for impact of summaries in Apple Mail, Gmail

Email is the top area where marketers are increasing their budgets. Some 62% of US B2B and B2C marketers had increased their email marketing campaign in the past 12 months, according to April 2023 data from SeQuel Response and ISG. But recent email updates from Apple and Gmail add new challenges to email marketing, especially for B2B marketers.

Apple’s latest iOS update introduced email categorization, Smart Replies, and AI-generated summaries. The updates come on the heels of Google introducing a similar “Summarize this email” feature. Both moves make it possible for users to see the contents of an email without opening it, which could affect a key metric for email marketers.

What are Apple’s changes?

• Users will be able to see AI-generated summaries of emails instead of senders’ preheader text.
• Apple is also sorting incoming messages into folders, similar to how Google filters email with its “Promotions” tab.

Ensuring deliverability and avoiding spam filters is the top challenge marketers face with email automation, according to April 2024 data from Ascend2. Now the emails that are being delivered to the right inboxes are in even more jeopardy of never being opened.

Changes to email will have implications for B2B. Email is the top channel for B2B marketers, used by 73% of US B2B marketers, per April 2023 data from Ascend2 and Zoominfo. The changes could make the B2B audience less reachable.

They also compound with other changes, like Apple iOS’s protection against trackers and Google’s rules for bulk senders, to make email marketers’ jobs more difficult.

B2C marketers may fare better with the changes. “I don't know that it affects retail email much,” said Ryan Phelan, managing director at RPEOrigin. Phelan said emails from strong brands will still get opens—and potentially conversions—so long as they are targeting the right recipients. “The consumer, when they get engaged or have a predisposition to spend money, they want to see all the things in the email from the brand,” he said.

But the advice for B2C and B2B email marketers is the same.

• “Your emails need to be relevant [to reader interests], which means a downstream investment in data, process, and voice of the customer,” Phelan said. “Recognize loyalty. Recognize purchase. Recognize past behavior. Roll that all up into a relevant message.”
• Marketers should also avoid over-sending and relying on irrelevant content to ensure emails are opened.
• Personalize email campaigns to make them stand out in inboxes and signal to AI that they are unique and important.

Apple and Google’s AI email updates also reinforce the importance of diversifying marketing tactics outside of email. While email marketing is important, marketers will always be dependent on email service providers (ESPs) that will continue adding AI features to inboxes. Inboxes could soon be organized algorithmically by relevance, rather than chronologically, suggested Phelan.

Marketers need to have tactics outside of email so changes from ESPs don’t uproot their strategies. Sponsored messages on LinkedIn or targeted SMS messages can help marketers avoid issues with email, but they come with a price tag.

Quick takeaways:

1. Build a strong brand so consumers recognize it in the inbox.
2. Keep your email content relevant by investing in your own data to target campaigns to the best potential consumers.
3. Invest in marketing beyond email to avoid being derailed by inbox innovations.

This was originally featured in the EMARKETER Daily newsletter. For more marketing insights, statistics, and trends, subscribe here.