Glossary / Email

Industry terms

Open rate

Open rate is the share of delivered emails that were opened, usually tracked with a tiny invisible image in the email.

Also called: email open rate, opens

By Aulto · Last reviewed

Can you trust open rates?

Less than before. Some mail apps load images automatically for privacy, which counts emails as opened when nobody read them. Apple Mail's privacy protection is the best-known example.

What should you watch instead?

Clicks and what happens after them: streams, sign-ups, purchases. Use opens to compare subject lines over time, not as proof that people read.

Example

A release email shows a 70% open rate but only 4% clicks: many of those "opens" were mail apps loading it automatically.

  • Click-through rate

    Click-through rate (CTR) is the share of people who clicked a link out of everyone who saw it, written as a percentage.

  • Double opt-in

    Double opt-in means someone signs up and then confirms by clicking a link in an email, which proves the address is real and theirs.

  • Attribution

    Attribution is working out where a click, sign-up or sale came from, so you know which post, channel or campaign actually worked.

  • Deliverability

    Deliverability is how reliably your emails land in people's inboxes, rather than spam or not at all.

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