What Are Open and Click Rates?
Open rate is a measure of how many people on an email list opened (or viewed) a particular email campaign. It is most commonly expressed as a percentage and calculated by dividing the number of email messages opened by the total number of email messages sent (excluding those that bounced.)
The email will not be counted as an open until one of the following occurs:
- The recipient enables the images in the email or
- The recipient interacts with the email by clicking on a link
Rates are calculated on a per subscriber basis, rather than total values. This is called unique and it means that if one subscriber opens the email 5 times, then it only counts once, so you could never have more than 100%. This is a much more accurate way of calculating how many people have enjoyed your newsletter.
Open rate % = (Opens ÷ Emails Delivered) x 100
Click rate is a percentage that tells you how many successfully delivered campaigns registered at least one click.
Click rate % = (Clicks ÷ Opens) x 100
What’s a Good Open Rate?
It really depends on the size of your subscriber list. Logically, if you have a small list, each newly opened email will make a larger difference to the rating results than if you have a big list.
Although we refuse to be nailed down to specific percentages, we would say that if you’re getting less than 15% opens, something is wrong. This could be that your email server is set up wrong or is blacklisted, or that your subscribers are marking your messages as spam if they didn’t give you permission to email them.
Conversely, if you’re consistently achieving 100% opens, there might be something affecting the results too. If you are having any suspicious behaviour from your open rates, please get in touch with our support team (green Support button in the left bottom corner).
Improving Your Email Open Rates:
- Try to stand out with a catchy subject line and relevant content people will want to read;
- Verify the best day to send emails;
- Look for inactive subscribers and delete them;
- Segment your list so your subscribers will be more interested in the emails you send them and will be more engaged with your email list;
- If you purchased an email list, you’re probably getting lower than expected delivery rates;
- Avoid keywords and phrases often associated with spam. You can also see how to reduce the chances to be under Gmail Promotions tab.
Improving Your Email Click Rates:
- You can get some suggestions by reading our Writing links for emails that get clicks article.