Open Rate

The percentage of recipients who open an email, influenced by subject line, sender reputation, and placement.

What is Open Rate?

Open rate measures the percentage of recipients who open an email out of the total delivered. It’s often the first metric marketers look at to judge campaign success. While not perfect, it provides insight into subject line effectiveness, timing, and brand trust.

Why it matters

Open rate reflects whether people are interested enough to even look at your message. Declining open rates can signal deliverability issues, poor targeting, or weak subject lines. While engagement metrics like CTR are more meaningful, open rates are a useful early warning sign.

How it works

Opens are typically tracked by embedding a tiny invisible pixel in the email. When the recipient’s client loads the image, it registers as an open. However, privacy features like Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) can inflate or obscure open data, since they preload images whether or not the user actually opens the email.

Examples

A subject line “Your order has shipped” driving 70% opens.
A vague subject line tanking engagement at 10%.
Open rates spiking artificially due to Apple MPP.

Best practices

Test subject lines regularly through A/B testing.
Optimize send times for your audience.
Use List Hygiene to keep engagement high.
Focus on trends over time, not single-campaign numbers.

FAQs

What’s considered a good open rate?
It depends on industry, but averages hover around 20–25%. However, the most important benchmark is your own past performance. If your opens are consistently dropping, that’s a red flag—even if you’re above the average.

Can I trust open rate data given privacy changes?
Not fully. Apple MPP and other privacy features distort open rates by inflating them. Instead of treating opens as precise data, use them as directional signals and pair them with CTR to get a fuller picture.

How can I improve my open rates?
Focus on relevance. Segment your audience so that people receive emails they care about. Craft compelling subject lines that create curiosity or provide clear value. Optimize send times to when your audience is most active.