Understanding Adjusted Opens (Apple Mail Privacy Protection)

Email reporting metrics can be affected by how email clients load images. One important factor influencing open tracking is Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP).

To provide more accurate engagement metrics, the platform uses Adjusted Opens, which apply a correction factor to account for automated activity generated by Apple MPP.

This page explains how Apple MPP affects reporting and why adjusted metrics are used.

📬 What Is Apple Mail Privacy Protection?

Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) is a feature introduced by Apple to enhance user privacy when reading email.

When MPP is enabled, Apple’s email clients may automatically load images in the background, even if the user has not actively opened the email.

This behavior can generate additional image requests that appear similar to real email opens.

Because many advertising signals in email rely on image loading, this can inflate open counts.

📊 How Apple MPP Affects Reporting

When Apple Mail Privacy Protection preloads images, it may create signals that look like normal user opens.

This can affect metrics such as:

Open counts
Click-through rate (CTR)
Revenue per mille (RPM)

Without adjustments, open counts may appear higher than actual user engagement.

⚖️ What Are Adjusted Opens?

Adjusted Opens apply a correction factor to reduce the impact of automated opens generated by Apple MPP.

The adjustment helps estimate the number of opens more likely to represent real user engagement.

Adjusted opens are used when calculating certain performance metrics, including:

CTR (Click Through Rate)
RPM (Revenue Per Mille)

Using adjusted opens helps ensure that these metrics better reflect real user behavior.

📈 Why Adjusted Metrics Are Important

Without adjustments for Apple MPP, metrics that rely on open counts could appear artificially low.

For example:

CTR may appear lower if opens are inflated
RPM may appear lower due to inflated denominator values

By using adjusted opens, the platform provides performance metrics that more accurately represent engagement and monetization.

📊 Where Adjusted Opens Appear in Reporting

Adjusted opens are displayed in several areas of the reporting interface.

These may include:

Container Performance tables
Placement Performance tables
Performance Over Time reports
Revenue calculations such as RPM

Whenever adjusted metrics are used, a notice is typically displayed in the reporting interface indicating that Apple MPP corrections have been applied.

🔍 Comparing Opens vs Adjusted Opens

In reporting tables you may see both metrics displayed:

Metric	Description
Opens	Raw open counts including Apple MPP image preloads
Adjusted Opens	Estimated opens after applying Apple MPP correction

Adjusted opens provide a more reliable reference point for evaluating engagement and performance.

📉 Why Numbers May Differ Across Reports

Because adjusted opens are used in some calculations while raw opens may still appear in reporting tables, numbers may differ slightly across reports.

This is expected and reflects how the platform corrects for automated image loads generated by Apple Mail Privacy Protection.

📌 Key Takeaways

Apple Mail Privacy Protection can generate automated image requests that appear as email opens.
These automated requests may inflate open counts.
Adjusted opens apply a correction factor to better estimate real user engagement.
Metrics such as CTR and RPM are calculated using adjusted opens to provide more accurate performance insights.