The open rate of your email campaign measures how many recipients opened the email.
While this is an important starting point to check if none of the people who open your email convert or open your external links your email campaign will not accomplish its goal.
Open rates are particularly helpful to assess the effectiveness of your subject lines and show you which recipients open which emails. In conjunction with your click-through rates and other metrics, your open rates can help you continue to review your marketing strategy.
How open rates are calculated
The open rate can be calculated based on the number of people who displayed the images (opened) or clicked on the links in the email (implied opened).
It is entirely possible your real open rate is higher than reported in your dashboard:
In the majority of email clients, images won't show unless the sender is a "trusted sender" or the user clicks on the link to show them.
You might have a large portion of your list that receives text-only emails (rather than HTML).
Open Rate:
(People who displayed images + People who clicked on a link) ______________________________________________________________
Total number of people you sent your email to
The expected result is 15% - 40%.
Some variables that could influence this include:
Permission: Sending campaigns about content your subscribers actively opted in to receive
Relationship with the list: For example, an older, non-reconfirmed list will not perform nearly as well as a targeted campaign.
Get delivered: Internet Service Providers know exactly how many of their users are opening/clicking/deleting/ignoring your emails. If you are sending to an active list of people that are engaged with the content you are sending them, you’ll build your good reputation.
Frequency: Sending regularly, which you should convey to your subscribers.
Subject: Clear and explicit subjects will yield higher open rates.
Alternate views: Keep the [SHOWEMAIL] (“View in a browser”) link in the header of your email
Multiplicity: Multiple links (since, as previously mentioned, links clicked automatically generate an open) and numerous small images.