Someone asks you “What are your email open rates?” and you look at them with indignation… “That’s none of your business!” but what’s really happening is that you feel shame because your email open rates are ONLY xx%.
This feeling of shame comes from 1) not knowing what industry open rates actually are and 2) because people like to boost about the size of their email list (which, if their list is dead, doesn’t really matter)
While email open rates can partially signal whether your email sequences are healthy or not, it can’t be fully trusted.
Here are 3 reasons why email open rates are misleading:
- Google “opens” emails to help determine where to put them in the inbox
- It doesn’t count people who have their graphics disabled (i.e. outlook and aol mail users)
- It’s a vanity metric
Let’s go through these
Google opens your email to place them in the box.
What I mean here is, in order to determine whether your email should go in the primary inbox, the promotions folder, social folder, or spam, Gmail opens a few of your emails upon receiving them in their server. How can you see who’s emails are getting “opened” by Google? Well in ActiveCampaign (my preferred email service provider) it shows the subscriber’s general location (city, state, country) which allows for “time-zone sending”. Now if it says “Mountainview, California, US” that’s Gmail’s location.
Another sign that Google has opened your email is that you have IMMEDIATE opens on your emails RIGHT after sending them. While it isn’t impossible to have someone in their email box right as you send the email… it’s highly unlikely. So you can write off those opens as well.
So when you want to assess the effectiveness of your email automation and your overall list, don’t rely solely on email open rates.
Some opens aren’t counted at all
The next reason not to solely rely on open rates is that if your subscribers are using Outlook mail, some work email provider, or AOL then it’s possible they might open your email without the graphics being displayed. Even if you don’t include any graphics in your emails there’s a little micro pixel added to your emails to count the opens. If your subscriber doesn’t “allow images” then it won’t count their viewing of your email.
So far we have discussed both over-reporting and under-reporting as a reason not to solely rely on email open rates.
Now the strategic reason is that email open rates are a vanity metric.
When you open Instagram there’s a post there already and technically you viewed it… but did you really engage? Simply looking at something doesn’t necessarily determine interest.
How would you define someone’s engagement on an Instagram post? They click “see more” to read the caption.
Then they might take whatever call to action you included in your caption:
- comment below,
- check out the link in my bio,
- send me a direct message (DM),
- Share this post to your stories!
Then they do something else.
Simply viewing something doesn’t equal engagement, even if it’s in your inbox. I view most the emails in my inbox most days. This doesn’t mean I’m interested. This is why you can’t solely rely on that open rate.
“Ok, Britt. If we can’t rely on the open rates how can we assess the effectiveness of the email sequences?”
Glad you asked! Before we go over how to determine if your email sequence is effective let’s recap here.
We discovered why you might feel shame because you don’t know what industry open rates and there are so many people boosting about their email open rates.
We’ve also covered why they aren’t the best indicators of success for 3 reasons:
- GMail opens your emails
- Some email services block images in your emails and
- They are only a vanity metric anyway
Because of this, while this rate is appreciated, it’s overrated.
New Development Aug 2021: Apple has said they will allow users to TURN OFF the pixel that notifies you that they opened the email. This is another reason why focusing on engagement is key. Replies and click-throughs are your friend!
If you’re having trouble with building engagement into your emails out my new optin Welcome Email Template. This opt-in will help you create an email marketing automation strategy and have you focusing on engagement over opens in no time. Visit https://www.brittanywhitevolks.com/free-welcome-email-templates-for-beauty-businesses to grab the Welcome Email Template free today.
