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Let’s dive into the fascinating world of email open rates and the recent changes affecting email tracking. Adapting to these shifts is vital for optimising your KPIs and maximising email deliverability. Ready? Let’s get started! 🚀
What Is an Open Rate?
Open rate measures how many recipients open your emails, calculated as:
For example, if you send 200 emails and 100 recipients open them, your open rate is 50%.
An open rate of over 50% has traditionally been a benchmark, but recent changes in email tracking have shifted the landscape. Lower open rates no longer necessarily mean poor performance.
Why Open Rates Are Less Reliable Now
Open rates for cold emails are becoming less accurate due to privacy concerns and technical changes. Instead, reply rate and interest rate have emerged as more reliable metrics for gauging recipient engagement.
👉 Curious about marking leads as interested or not? Check out this helpful resource.
What’s Changing in Email Tracking?
1. Privacy Features in Email Clients
Email providers like Gmail have introduced mechanisms that block tracking pixels, reducing the accuracy of open rate data. Lemlist tracks email opens primarily by embedding tracking pixels into emails. When a recipient's email client loads the pixel, the email is registered as "opened." It's important to note that some email clients may not fully support this due to privacy settings, making this metric less reliable.
2. False Interactions from Spam Filters
Some inboxes use bots to open emails and click links as a safety measure. These interactions are mistakenly counted as opens or clicks, even when the recipient hasn’t engaged with the email. Additionally, external tools or bots, such as scrapers or third-party services, can artificially inflate open statistics. For instance, such systems may inadvertently trigger opens while scanning email content.
3. Limitations of Read Receipts
While some tracking tools offer read receipts, their accuracy depends on the recipient’s email client settings and may not always work.
How to Adapt to These Changes
1. Focus on Engagement Metrics
Instead of relying solely on open rates, it's also beneficial to consider complementary metrics such as link clicks and manual tracking of lead interactions to gain a broader view of campaign performance.
Reply Rate: The percentage of recipients who reply to your emails.
Interested Rate: The percentage of leads who express interest in your email offer.
2. Understand the Impact of Privacy Measures
Recognise that multiple opens or false interactions may not reflect real recipient behaviour. Adjust your analysis to focus on tangible engagement, like replies and clicks. For instance, opens may be falsely registered if senders view their sent folder or if third-party bots scan the email content in transit.
3. Stay Informed and Flexible
Adapting to these changes is key to maintaining strong email deliverability and performance. Keep an eye on your KPIs and adjust your strategies as needed.