Open rate
Open rate
Email Marketing
Open rate is the share of delivered emails that were opened, measured by a tracking image that loads when the email is viewed.
What is Open rate?
Open rate used to be the headline email metric. It's now unreliable: Apple Mail Privacy Protection loads images in the background, so many emails register as opened whether or not anyone read them.
Still useful for: comparing subject lines in an A/B test, and spotting sudden drops that hint at a spam-folder problem.
Better measures of results: click rate, orders and revenue per recipient. Texts report no opens at all.
Formula
Open rate = Unique opens ÷ Emails delivered × 100
Example
5,000 emails delivered and 2,000 unique opens is a 40% open rate, but some of those opens were Apple's privacy proxy, not people.
Why Open rate Matters
Read opens as a rough signal, and judge campaigns by clicks and sales.
Open rate FAQ
What is a good email open rate?
It depends on your industry, list and how your tool counts Apple opens, so compare against your own history rather than a published average.
Why did my open rate jump in 2021?
Apple Mail Privacy Protection, released that year, began preloading emails, which counts as opens.
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