Email Open Rates - Everything You Need to Know

Keep reading to learn more about open rates, how they are measured and whether your open rates are above or below average.

What is an email open rate?

Emails Opened / Emails Sent = Open Rate

An open rate measures how many people open an email campaign. Open rate is shown as a percentage. Remarkety calculates open rate by taking the number of "emails opened" and dividing by number of "email sent". Thus, a 30% open rate would mean that every 10 emails delivered to the inbox, 3 were opened.

You can can find open rate in the Remarkety dashboard and in detailed metrics with each campaign..

Can an open/click rate exceed 100%?

Yes - read here to find out why.

How does Remarkety measure an open?

When an email is sent out, Remarkety automatically adds an invisible and unique pixel inside each email. When this email is opened, a request is sent to our server in milliseconds. When our server gets this request, we know an email has been opened.

It's important to note that open rates are not 100% accurate. An open can only be measured if a customer displays the images inside the email. Most email software automatically shows images, but some do not. If your customer clicked a link in the email, however, Remarkety considers this an open. We do this because if a customer clicks a link, they must have opened the email. 

Nonetheless, open rates are great for determining trends in campaign performance.

What are above average or below average open rates?

The averages vary widely depending on your industry and other factors like who the email was sent to, when the campaign was sent, the type of campaign it is, subject lines and the segmentations you chose. However, an average open rate is between 15% and 40%. Many automated email campaigns eCommerce stores are sending with Remarkety are performing well above average with open rates higher than 50%.

What are ways to increase open rates?

There are a many ways to motivate customers to open your emails. Here are just a few things you could try:

  • Personalized Subject Lines: Use personalization tags and customer order numbers in the subject line. For example: "Lisa, thank you for order #34156" or "Lisa, thanks for ordering the Aqua Blue Heels" instead of just "Thank you for your order."
  • Following Up: Your first email might be sent when a customer is busy in the morning. Try sending the email again later in the day when they might have more free time. Consider following up with a similar email a few days later at a different time if the first two don't get opened.
  • Preview/Preheader Text: New email clients and mobile phones will display a preview of the first 2 lines of your email bellow the subject line. Your customers can see this line of text before deciding to open. Make sure your first two lines have a value prop or incentive to get customers to open.
  • A/B Testing: If you have two subject lines and you're not sure which one will perform better - run both! If you're sending a newsletter, the results will be clear quickly. If you're sending trigger emails that are sent after a customer action, it might take a little longer for results to come in.

Related articles:

- 3 Ways To Increase Your Open Rate Now

- How to Avoid Email Spam Filters and Folders 

Thanks for reading!

Remarkety Team

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