Newsflash: Your Open Rate Does NOT Tell You How Many People Opened Your Email

It's amazing how many people do not know how open rates are calculated. Loren McDonald rightfully is trying to convince the email marketing world to change the name from "open rate" to "render rate" because that is what it is. Read his articles and the comments on them here and here.

Open rates are tracked by the number of times a certain image was downloaded from the sending server. So if images are not being downloaded it will not be able to track whether or not you've opened the email.

Let me explain with two examples:

1. Let's say your email client downloads images by default and you use a preview pane to scroll through your inbox. In this case when you preview an email in the preview pane, even if it's only for half a second, this will be counted as an open. 
2. If your email client blocks images by default and you open an email and read it without downloading the images, an open will not be tracked.

In the first case, an open is tracked even though you didn't read the email, in the second case you read the email but an open is not tracked because the images were not downloaded. Only when you view an email (it doesn't matter if you open it or view it in the preview pane) and download the images, an open will be tracked.

Keep this in mind when you evaluate your open rates. The only reason you should look at open rates over time is to determine a trend. Don't use the open rate as an indication of how many people actually opened and read the email, because you might be way off.

Comments

[Graham Jones - Internet Psychologist]

Good advice. I am amazed at the obsession with open rates. The numbers of people who open or read your email is largely irrelevant; what matters most is the number that take action.

You could, for instance, have an open rate of 50% but an "action rate" of 5% of those who opened. In other words that would be a conversion rate of 2.5%. But what if you had an open rate of 20% yet an action rate of 50%. That would be a conversion of 10%. So the lower open rate is then better.

Open rates are not what you should be looking at - it's the numbers of people who do what you want them to do after they have read your email.

[Jim (Personalize Marketing) ncp]

Thanks fpr your aricle...its very usefull...

[Ken Burgin]

OK - have to say I check my open and click-through rates on Constant Contact fairly regularly. So what proportion of actual click-throughs might the shown figure be?

[Tamara Gielen]

Ken, click-throughs are typically measured against either emails sent or emails delivered. I recommend you ask your contact at CC to tell you which formula they use to calculate click-throughs. Hope this answers your question?

[Derrick Jones]

Great work, I'll use what I've found here in my business...

[Adam Blitzer]

Excellent post - I constantly encounter marketers who aren't aware of how open rates are calculated. I'll be posting this on my blog as well to help spread the "news."

[Jim (Personalize Marketing) Ncp]

Ya that’s the good thing, you have thought me the things which I was not knowing thank you

[Brian V.]

Our company built a custom link tracker that allows us to track clicks by user. Anyone clicking a link is counted as an open. Total opens is calculated by combining traditional opens (image loads) with clicks...and that gets a bit closer to a more accurate number. Although we fully realize that it will never be accurate. Just another benchmark to use in the toolbelt.

[Courtney]

Again some great information coming from this blog. I wasn't aware of this on open rates, so I have certainly learnt something for the day- thanks again