Apple Declares War on Newsletters

0:00So Apple has declared war on newsletter. So I'm going to read off a couple of things and then we're going to jump right into this. So this newsletter I'm reading, this is from Simon Owens on Substack. So it says, Apple is coming again for your newsletter metrics. So with iOS 17, which expands the public beta in July before the official launch in September, Apple will start automatically removing link trackers from URLs sent via message and mail, as well as links in Safari private browsing. Some marketers say removing URL parameters can make campaign analytics less reliable. some of the unintended impact, quote unquote, changes could include URL trackers related to ad measurement, embedded media, social widgets, fraud prevention, bot detection, audience measurement, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

0:44And the other thing too, is a few years ago, Apple killed our ability to accurately track open rates by automatically opening all emails that were loaded into the Apple mail app. And so there's that too. So people are talking about their high open rates. They're probably artificial. So the final thing I'll call out here before we go into it is by eliminating these features, Apple just seems to be giving more power to closed platform ecosystems that can track user behavior from end to end platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. And that's that. Well, they also made it harder on Facebook with the iOS privacy changes.

1:19But the things that a lot of these platforms are doing is they're making moves that helps them grow their ecosystem more than others. And I think that's the key that You're seeing even Google, they're following suit with Apple's privacy changes, right? With cookie list stuff. And that's going to impact Facebook in 2024 as well. And that's going to have a huge hit on ad revenue for them. We saw with iOS, you know, a lot of people use Android devices throughout the world. There's more people on Android devices than iPhone devices or iOS devices. And it just makes it where their own ecosystems are stronger.

1:53You want to play, you want to do well, you play in their own ecosystems. Yep. Look, I mean, this is business, right? Your incentive is to do what is good for your business. Charlie Munger, show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome. This guy actually ran a survey on this whole thing. Do you think these changes are net positive for consumers or net negative? And so, yes, here, Neil. So, it says, what do you think? Will the Apple privacy policies be good or bad for consumers? Do you think the majority said good for consumers or bad for consumers? They said good. Okay, no. Reversed. 31 % said good for consumers.

2:2669 % said bad for consumers, right? This is on 175 votes. So take it for what it is. Yeah, I think if you ask the mass public, majority of people would say the changes are good because it's smart people that are reading this, right? Like it's like entrepreneurial tech people that are reading this. This is on Twitter where he did the thread, right? No, it's not on Twitter. This is on Substack, but you have to assume it's a tech audience that's reading this. Yeah, yeah. Because if you ask most people, when they install the app, they'll click, do not track, and they don't want any of their data going out there.

2:55Most people don't want their information leaked. It's about the narrative, right? Apple is really good at telling stories. They're really good at taking you on this journey, just like they did with Vision Pro. They'll also take you on a journey here when they want to do something that's favorable to them. And so I don't blame them for doing that. But at the end of the day here, it is interesting that Apple is doing this. But Neil and I both believe that newsletters are still very much a nice moneymaker for your business. And I think as we move more and more into a first-party world, the reason why we're seeing more newsletters is because you have more control at the end of the day.

3:25A lot of people do say that the newsletter, despite all the different ways of monetizing their business, it is very much the base of their business. And so that's why we're actually driving more paid media ads to our newsletter. And we're trying to upgrade the level of content that we're putting out. So we use a tool called Beehive. That's B-E-E-H-I-I-V. At the very end of it, it says, hey, what do you think of this newsletter? Like blew me away or it was okay or it sucked. and our goal is to always make sure that the majority of people are saying like it's good or like it blew them away, right?

3:55So you're constantly looking for that feedback. So I would ignore this, right? Because at the end of the day, it doesn't kill newsletters. I would just keep focusing on making good stuff and delivering good stuff to your audience and then you will continue to reap the rewards. For newsletters too, the one metric that you should track, the most important metric that we look at is actual clicks. So we don't look at opens as much because that data is skewed a lot, but you can get a lot of click data and you can figure out, all right is my newsletter overall growing or declining or doing better or worse what are your click rates right now they're low let's actually see i have to go log into convert kit to see so ours is hovers around two percent or so the open rate for ours i believe is inflated it says 44 i'm actually trying to look at analytics here grow subscribers neil's looking for the click rate Right.

4:42See, we share data on this podcast. So 1.4%, 2.3%, 1.6%, 1.1. I'm hovering between one and 2 % on clicks. Okay, there you go. So we're around the same. So, and what's your open rate say on it? My open rate is over 30 % almost all emails. Okay. So we'll try to break this down for you. Maybe in the future, we'll look at what percent of our users are actually coming from iOS. And so that is what it is. But Neil's got to go ride bikes with his family now. So it's the first time for Emma. So everyone say hooray to Emma. And that is it for today. Please don't forget to rate, subscribe, five stars. Oh, and register for the event.

5:22You can apply for the event. Sorry. levelingup.com slash founders. That's in Beverly Hills. Neil and I will be there. Come hang out with us August 7th to the 9th and goodbye.