Digital marketing term
Open Rate
Open Rate is a core email marketing metric that shows the percentage of recipients who opened a sent email campaign.
Detailed explanation
This rate is calculated by dividing the number of opened emails by the total number delivered; a curiosity-inducing, relevant subject line and well-chosen send time both directly affect it.
Privacy updates like Apple Mail Privacy Protection can cause some opens to be triggered automatically through preloading rather than reflecting real user behavior; that's made this metric, on its own, less reliable in recent years.
As a result, marketers have shifted toward evaluating this rate alongside metrics like email CTR and unsubscribe rate for a more holistic read on campaign health.
Frequently asked questions
- Is open rate a reliable metric?
- Because privacy updates can trigger some opens automatically, it isn't fully reliable on its own and should be read alongside other metrics.
- How is open rate increased?
- Writing curiosity-inducing, relevant subject lines, choosing the right send time, and segmenting the list all increase open rate.
Related terms
Internal links for the topic cluster — read these concepts together.
- Email CTREmail CTR is the metric that shows the share of recipients who clicked a link within an email campaign, relative to the total number of emails sent or opened.
- DeliverabilityDeliverability is the email marketing concept that describes the rate at which sent emails reach a recipient's actual inbox rather than a spam folder, along with the factors behind that process.
- Unsubscribe RateUnsubscribe Rate is the metric that shows the share of recipients who unsubscribed from a list after receiving an email campaign, relative to the total number of recipients it was sent to.
- SegmentationSegmentation is the approach of dividing a target audience into smaller, more homogeneous groups based on shared demographic, behavioral, or interest-based traits.