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What is an Email Open Rate?

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Definition

Email open rate is a metric calculated as the percentage of recipients who open an email out of the total number of successfully delivered emails. Open Rate=Number of Unique OpensNumber of Emails Delivered×100\text{Open Rate} = \frac{\text{Number of Unique Opens}}{\text{Number of Emails Delivered}} \times 100 For example, if you send 100 emails and 30 are opened by the recipient, your open rate would be 30%. Sales and Marketing teams reference open rates, as they provide the first indication of the performance and effectiveness of an outreach campaign. A high open rate suggests your subject line and pre-header text are compelling, and your list segmentation and send time are optimized.

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Recent Updates

The accuracy of open rates has become less reliable due to recent privacy changes and technological advances by major email service providers (ESPs).
  • Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP): This feature, introduced by Apple, pre-loads (prefetches) email content, including the tracking pixel used to log an open, before the recipient physically opens the email. This activity is logged as an “open” even if the recipient never actually views the message.
  • Gmail and other ESPs: Similar prefetching, security scanning, and anti-spam activities by other services can also trigger the open tracking pixel without direct human action.
Because of this machine-driven activity, open rates are now generally viewed as less accurate indicators of engagement than they were in the past.

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How Reevo Calculates Open Rates

Reevo has recently updated its open rate calculation methodology to ensure the most relevant and comparable data for our customers:

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Why We Made This Change

By including all opens, Reevo’s reported open rate measurements are now directly comparable to the metrics reported by other industry services and platforms. This allows you to benchmark your performance more effectively. Reevo will continue building a solution that provides a clearer breakdown on inferred activity, giving you a more nuanced understanding of your engagement over time.