Issue #147 All About Email

Hi, friend. 👋

Welcome to Issue #147 of All About Email!

🚨 Technically, this is Issue #3 of “All About Email” (my rebranding of Mail Mondays), and this is the first time I’m sending an entire campaign from Beehiiv.

Last week, Lindsey Carroll took over my newsletter as the first of my summer guest authors 😎 ⛱️.

This week, it’s back to me writing the emails, and it’s about 🍎 or 🍏 (whichever you prefer).

Let’s go! 👇

iOS 18 - The Personalised Inbox

Some of Apple’s features aren’t new to Google Workspace and Yahoo Mail users (more on that in the Email News section), but they are exciting additions to the world’s most popular inbox.

The iOS 18 update introduces significant “enhancements” to the Mail app.

(💡 Fun fact: I must be one of the few Apply users who don’t use the Mail app. I hate it, for now.)

These include:

• The on-device categorisation of emails into Primary, Transactions, Updates, and Promotions “makes it easier to manage the inbox.”

• A new digest view consolidates relevant emails from businesses for quick access. These features aim to simplify email management and keep users organised.

(🎥 Check out the second video below for more Tabs and Digest view information.)

What does it mean for email marketing?

It’s too early to tell, as iOS 18 will not be released until September 2024, and it could be November before we see significant adoption to start gauging the impact.

We know that Apple’s AI, dubbed “Apple Intelligence” (so smart), is not going away; it’s tightly baked into the Apple ecosystem, and this is just the beginning.

Similar Tabs Gmail

This could change, but here is what we know about Tabs:

• Primary - displays time-sensitive messages, emails from people the user might know, and other important information.

• Transactions - an email category for receipts and order confirmations.

• Updates - which contain newsletters and social media notices.

• Promotions - for marketing and sales-related emails.

Just like we can do with other Inbox Providers, we can recategorise messages, too. 👇

🚨 Jump to 22:52 for the relevant information on email in just 90 seconds (the YouTube Live “start from” link wouldn’t work.)

What Should I Do?

✋ First, don’t panic, there isn’t anything to panic about.

Whilst the new AI Digests feature seems to only apply to emails from businesses (that could change), we don’t yet know the technicalities of how this process will work (or how it will be refined); here are some things you can do and test:

• 🙏 If you haven’t accepted this already, Tabs “are the inbox,” and certain emails “should” live in the Promotions folder.
  

• 👀 Subject Lines and Preview Text will probably impact AI Digests. Subject Lines should be relevant to the email (it sounds obvious), and Preview Text should summarise your email content.
  

• 👷 Email Content should be skimmable and structured (bonus points for semantic markup and using the correct structures for headings and body text)

🚨 I would argue at this point, you should be (if you haven’t been already) making your emails more accessible! If you build your emails for accessibility, it will make them easier for machines and humans to “digest”. 😉

(If you want to read more about this, check out the official announcement from Apple or the breaking news from Apple Insider.)

Before You Go ⚠️

In Issue #145 of All About Email, I discussed updates to Google Postmaster Tools and the Yahoo Sender Hub, but I also addressed a spam problem with this new domain.

🎉 Thanks to many of you lovely subscribers, the problem was solved by:

• Adding my new domain to your contacts

• Engaging and Replying to my emails

But while you were the solution friend, the cause of the problem was me, and it was all because of this subdomain.

Thanks again for helping me solve this issue! 🙌

That’s it for this week 👋

⏭️ Next week is about “size matters” from my next summer guest author (and friend), Emily Ryan. 🎉

🤭 Full disclosure friend. I messed up this section last week and forgot to finish it while leaving you hanging simultaneously. 🤦‍♂️

(Check out last week's email's “Next Week“ section if you didn’t spot the mistake.)

Email Marketing News

This week's excellent and insightful Email News & Tips:

• I Want to Know - How To Write A Daily Newsletter That Grows Your Business (And Doesn't Overwhelm You!) featuring Emily Ryan! (Josh Spector)

• Google Email Ads - Google Ad Manager Launches Programmatic Email Ads. (Practical Ecommerce)

• Zero Carbon Email - A significant portion of emails become obsolete within days of their reception by recipients. Why shouldn’t the senders indicate when their emails become obsolete? (Email Expiration Date)

• The Hub - Litmus have launched the Email Personalization Knowledge Center. (Litmus)

• Holiday Inspiration - The Best 539 Holiday Email Examples in 2024. (Really Good Emails)

• Rules, Rules - Microsoft Will Require Email Authentication: The Email Sending Rules You Need to Know. (ZeroBounce)

• DMARC - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. (Word to the Wise)

A must-read! 👇

•  AI Email Summaries - What Marketers Need to Know. (Litmus)

If you have a question about this email or email marketing, reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋