Your Open Rates Are Wrong! Here's Why...
Ah, open rates. As an email marketer, few things are more thrilling than seeing yours trending upwards.
What if I told you open rates aren’t accurate, and never were?
That's right, open rates are one of the tallest email tales around…with a nose almost as long as Pinocchio’s distant cousin, the deliverability rate.
If you’re reading this and alarm bells are going off in your head asking, “wait, whaaaat?! 😳” — keep reading.
We've already talked about why your deliverability rate is wrong in a past lesson, so today let’s dig in on why your open rates aren’t accurate, either.
Why you can't trust the numbers
Email opens are measured by embedding a transparent tracking pixel within the email. This tracking pixel is a tiny graphic with 1×1 dimensions, usually placed at the end of the email, so it’s not typically noticed by humans. But when a subscriber’s mailbox provider loads the images in an email, the open-tracking pixel is also loaded, which logs an open for the subscriber.
Sounds good in theory, but in reality, there's no way to accurately measure how many humans opened your email thanks to all the spam filters that sporadically open emails to check if they’re safe for their users.
We’ve also got many mailbox providers including Gmail, Yahoo and Apple pre-loading images (firing those tracking pixels!) without being prompted by a user action. This improves the recipient experience by allowing content to load up as quickly as possible (because how dare it take more than a few nanoseconds), but it makes figuring out which humans actually opened your email a bit of a fool’s errand.
But not all is lost, dear friend!
Why opens are still useful
The trick is, you need to be using them as a directional sign of email health, not a confirmation that someone on your list is opening (and LOVING!) what you send.
They’ll tell you when you’re reaching the inbox (sort of). 💌
Opens aren't registered for emails that land in the spam folder with the mailbox providers that pre-fetch images...unless an actual human has gone to their spam folder, opened the message, and requested to download images.
Just like most things in email, this isn’t an exact science, but it’s fair to conclude that if an open has been registered, the email very likely went to the inbox.
They’ll highlight where you’re going to spam. 💌
By watching the trends in your open rates over time at the mailbox provider level, you get a useful (and free!) way to identify potential issues with inbox placement.
I’ll give you an example: you might think everything’s lookin’ healthy if your overall open rate is ~30%. But if you take a closer look, comparing your open rates at all destinations you send to side-by-side, you might notice that things look good at Gmail and Yahoo and everywhere else…but they’re trending around 4% at Microsoft. That means you’re very likely landing in the Junk folder.
Here’s what that looks like:
Ruh roh, Roger...looks like you're goin' to spam with Microsoft.
If you see something like this in your stats, dig in with your ESP (or favorite deliv nerd!) and figure out what's happening. Need help with that? I’ve got your back. Hit reply and let’s figure it out.
Why inaccurate opens aren’t a big deal.
Opens are just one small piece of the email data puzzle…and let me tell you, it’s a big frickin’ puzzle!
Instead of focusing on opens alone (which can be misleading and even detrimental to your overall email strategy), expand your focus to include other, more reliable metrics to determine if your emails are helping you reach the inbox and your goals with email. A few of my faves:
Unsubscribes, and their reasons if you're collecting them
Bounces, and the failure details telling you why something wasn't delivered - they might mention high spam complaints
Clicks, even though they're also quite flawed, thanks to bot clicks aka NHI (non-human interactions)
Conversions
Revenue per email (RPE)
And YES, I did just list all the negative engagement metrics first…this is a blog on deliverability, remember? If recipients are marking your emails as spam, you’re less likely to reach the inbox. And if you’re not reaching the inbox, well then I think you know how little positive engagement you can expect.
We dug into some of these in a past lesson on catching (and lowering) email performance red flags so go check that out if you want a refresher. I’ve also worked with a bunch of email smarties to write 5,000+ word blog posts on most of these (linked above). Click in for the full scoop.
So, now you know why opens are useful, even though they're far from perfect. That brings us to the next big question: what's considered a good open rate, and what's considered...well, less good?
What’s a “good” open rate?
Tough to answer since even within the same industry, your mileage will vary.
Each organization has their own products and services, their own list of things they’re trying to accomplish, and their own way of collecting and managing lists. As such, each of us should also have our own set of benchmarks.
“Your past self is your best competitor,” is something I’ve often said when folks ask about my favorite benchmark reports. Aim to do better today than you did yesterday.
In order to do that, you need to have a good sense of what your typical performance looks like. 30% could be great for one of your competitors, and perhaps that’s even the average within your industry. But if you’re typically pullin’ in 40 or 50% opens, something’s up. Go figure out what.
How to improve your open rate
Alright, so we’ve established that a high open rate doesn’t mean email success on its own. BUT, the higher they climb, the more likely it is that you have some actual humans interacting with your emails. Noiiiice.
So, here are a few ways to ensure your open rates stay on the up and up (and up!):
💌Check your nuts and bolts
Some things are in your control; others are not. Focus on what’s in your control until you run out of options:
Check for technical issues such as SPF, DKIM, or DMARC records potentially misconfigured. We talked about these in a past lesson on email authentication.
Review your delivery and engagement statistics for signs of a change. Was there a notable increase in signup rates or sending volume, or perhaps a rise in bounce or spam complaint rates within the couple of days before your open rates dropped? Look for any change at all. If you see one, try to understand it within the context of your other metrics.
Test out your subscriber experience! Are your signup forms, preference centers, and unsubscribe links working? Are your automations firing as expected? You’d be surprised how often automations run amok. It happens. Stay calm and email on.
💌 Improve your list quality
The quality of your list plays a big part in how high or low your open rate might go.
At the point of collection, make sure your lead magnets align with the content you’ll send. Set expectations at what people will receive and how often. Stick to what you promised and let them know when you plan to change something.
Secure all signup forms with a CAPTCHA (or similar). Bot signups have been a major pain in many a sender’s backside for years and their patterns have become harder to identify over the years. Sometimes they dump a ton of addresses into your form in a short period of time; other times these look like a steady increase in healthy, organic signups on the way in the door (marketers rejoice! For a little while, anyway). You can’t prevent bots from opening your emails, but you can minimize the likelihood of them signing up through your form if it’s protected with a CAPTCHA, re-CAPTCHA, or similar type of form protection.
Get very clear permission to send email. A confirmed opt-in process (COI) normally leads to better, more highly engaged subscribers, but it isn’t always necessary. Determine the right opt-in method for you based on your goals with email and how recipients react to your current flow. Look for patterns in positive and negative engagement within your first few emails, which may highlight ways you can better align your signup process with their expectations.
💌 Switch up your content
If you’re confident in your list quality, you see your mail is successfully delivered, and you’re still struggling to lift your open rates, it’s time to experiment with your content and strategy!
Overall, the name of the game is “testing.” Test your friendly From, subject lines, your discounts, your preheader text, different segmentation techniques…if you can test it, do it. Also consider creating smaller, more nuanced segments of your lists to allow you to be more personalized in your communications.
Play around and have fun. You never know which wild idea will be the one that’s wild…ly GENIUS!
💌 Reassess your email strategy
If all of the tips above don’t work, then it’s time to step back and take a wider look at your email program.
Are your email goals connected to the larger business objectives?
Are your lead magnets, subscription forms, and content supporting those objectives, attracting highly engaged email subscribers? Or are folks signing up only to get a discount code and then let your emails collect dust in their inboxes? Align all of this with what you’re trying to accomplish with your email program.
How often do you send? Some people enjoy (email) marathons; but others get a side stitch just thinking about running a 5k. Segmenting your athletes (ahem, email subscribers) into groups and sending at a frequency that’s more appropriate for them will help you improve your open rates.
Are recipients engaged within other channels (SMS, push notifications, logging in, making purchases,)? If so, maybe let ‘em go, let ‘em goooo, let ‘em go from your email flowww…or at least, reduce their frequency a bit. They’re not disappearing from your brand; just your segment of ‘active’ email engagers.
How good is our content, really? It doesn’t need to be the most expertly crafted piece of writing, but it does need to be helpful to their day-to-day. So, ask yourself: “Have I trained senders it’s not important to open my emails, either because I’m not offering unique value, or because they aren’t relevant to them?” Take a good, hard look in the mirror and answer honestly, then figure out how you’ll adjust!
That's it. That's the lesson.
Now you know why opens aren't accurate and never were. Total bummer, I know. But knowledge is power!
If you have questions on where to go from here, reply to this email and let me know! Or check out this (very robust) blog I wrote on Open Rates with guest contributions from email experts, Travis Hazlewood, Jaina Mistry, and Drew Price for the SocketLabs blog.
Want more content like this in your life?
Send It Right is a blog and weekly(ish) newsletter for marketers and email practitioners who want to reach the inboxes (and hearts) of email recipients. Join 960+ other email nerds in subscribing to get the next lesson directly in your inbox. 💌
