Open Rates Are Dead?
What Marketers Should Measure Instead
For years, marketers treated email open rates as a primary indicator of campaign success. A rising open rate meant subject lines were working. A declining open rate suggested audience fatigue. Entire strategies, A/B tests, and performance reviews revolved around a single number.
Today, that metric has become increasingly unreliable.
The question is no longer whether open rates matter less than they once did. The more important question is: what should marketers measure instead?
As privacy changes reshape email tracking and consumer behavior evolves, successful marketers are shifting focus from surface-level engagement metrics toward actions that connect directly to business outcomes.
Why Open Rates Became Unreliable
Historically, email opens were tracked using a tiny tracking pixel embedded in messages. When recipients opened an email and images loaded, marketers recorded an “open.”
The challenge is that inbox providers increasingly interfere with this process.
In 2021, Apple introduced Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) through Apple Mail, preventing senders from accurately determining when users actually opened emails. MPP preloads tracking pixels regardless of whether recipients engage with messages.
As a result, many marketers began seeing inflated open metrics almost overnight. Industry estimates suggest that approximately 58–60% of email opens are now generated by Apple Mail users, making traditional open-rate data increasingly distorted. Because Apple users can trigger opens automatically, reported engagement may not represent real human behavior.
The problem with measuring attention instead of action
Open rates were always somewhat limited because they measured curiosity rather than business value.
Campaign A:
45% open rate
1% click rate
5 conversions
Campaign B:
28% open rate
6% click rate
50 conversions
If you only looked at opens, Campaign A appears stronger. If you looked at revenue, Campaign B clearly wins.
Open rates answer: “Did someone potentially see my email?”
Marketers increasingly need metrics that answer: “Did someone take meaningful action?”
Metrics Marketers Should Focus On Instead
1. Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Click-through rate measures the percentage of recipients who clicked a link within an email. CTR provides stronger insight because clicks generally indicate intentional engagement.
Average email click-through rates across industries often range between 2–3%, although results vary significantly by audience and campaign type.
CTR can help marketers evaluate:
- Message relevance
- Call-to-action performance
- Content quality
- Audience targeting
A high open rate paired with low CTR often indicates a disconnect between the subject line and the content itself.
2. Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR)
CTOR compares clicks against opens rather than total delivered emails.
Formula:
CTOR = Clicks ÷ Opens × 100
This metric helps identify whether email content itself motivated engagement after the message was viewed.
Typical CTOR benchmarks often range from 10–15%, with highly targeted campaigns performing considerably better.
While opens themselves may be imperfect, CTOR can still provide directional insight when used carefully.
3. Conversion Rate
Conversion rate measures how many recipients completed the intended action after clicking. Conversion data connects email activity directly to business impact.
Research consistently shows email remains one of the highest-performing digital channels, generating approximately $36–$42 in average return for every $1 spent.
For most organizations, revenue and customer acquisition ultimately matter more than opens.
Examples Include:
Purchases
Form submissions
Demo requests
Webinar registrations
Downloads
4. Revenue Per Email (RPE)
Many ecommerce and B2B organizations increasingly rely on Revenue Per Email.
Formula:
RPE = Total Revenue ÷ Total Emails Sent
RPE answers an important question: “How much financial value did every message generate?”
Campaign A:
Revenue: $5,000
Emails sent: 50,000
RPE: $0.10
Campaign B:
Revenue: $12,000
Emails sent: 50,000
RPE: $0.24
Campaign B delivered more than double the value despite potentially lower opens.
5. Engagement Over Time
Instead of isolating campaign performance, many marketers now evaluate engagement trends across longer periods.
Important indicators include:
- Repeat clicks
- Subscriber activity frequency
- Time between interactions
- Customer lifetime value
- Re-engagement behavior
Inbox providers increasingly use engagement signals to determine inbox placement, making long-term behavior more valuable than individual campaign metrics.
6. Deliverability Metrics
Marketers often overlook metrics that determine whether emails even reach recipients.
METRIC
Inbox Placement Rate
Spam Complaint Rate
Hard Bounce Rate
Unsubscribe Rate
RECOMMENDED TARGET
90-95%+
Under 0.1-0.3%
Under 3%
Under 1%
A campaign cannot produce clicks or conversions if messages never reach the inbox.
Why open rates shouldn’t be ignored entirely
Open rates still have value when used carefully:
- Comparing similar campaigns over short periods
- Monitoring subject line experiments
- Identifying unusual performance shifts
- Spotting deliverability issues
The problem is not that opens provide limited information.
Problems arise when we treat opens as the primary measure of success. Think of open rates as a diagnostic signal rather than a final outcome metric.
THE FUTURE OF EMAIL MEASUREMENT
Email marketing is shifting from measuring visibility to measuring intent.
Privacy changes and evolving inbox technologies are pushing marketers toward metrics that reflect actual customer behavior.
Successful teams
increasingly prioritize:
- Click behavior
- Conversions
- Revenue impact
- Subscriber engagement trends
- Deliverability health
- Customer lifetime value
The marketers who adapt to these changes gain a clearer understanding of what is driving growth. The ones still optimizing for opens may end up improving numbers that are disconnected from performance.
Open rates are not entirely dead, but they are no longer the dependable performance indicator they once were. Modern email marketing requires moving beyond vanity metrics and focusing on actions that align with business goals.
A campaign with fewer opens but stronger conversions will almost always outperform one that simply generates curiosity.
The inbox landscape has changed. Measurement strategies need to evolve with it.
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