An email open rate is the percentage of recipients who opened an email; when you send an email to your subscribers using an email service provider, the email open rate can help you determine the number of people who are interested in your email content, update, or offer.
For example, if you have 2000 subscribers in your email list and 1000 people open your email, the email open rate will be 50%. You can get this by simply dividing the number of open emails by the number of subscribers. Then multiply your result by 100.
However, you can only count the unique opens; you can’t count one user more than once, even if they open your email more than once. Also, bounced emails are not counted.
For example, if you send an email to 2500 subscribers and 500 are bounced, that means the total number of delivered emails will be 2000, so if out of this number, 1000 emails were opened, then the email open rate will be 50%, neglecting all the bounced emails.
The email open rate is good for checking the success of your email marketing campaign; it can also help you get to know your audience better and know what they are interested in. However, no single metric can determine the success of an email marketing strategy; you should use different metrics depending on your goals.
What is the Average Email Open Rate?
There is no specific email open rate that can be considered an average rate because it tends to vary from one industry to another, and it also depends on the target audience. However, a good email open rate should be at least 17%; if it is within this range, it is considered a successful email marketing campaign. So, while you can do better, this range should be your lowest target when evaluating your email open rates.
Why is Email Open Rate an Essential Metric in Email Marketing
Email open rates are very important because they can show you how successful your email marketing campaign is. If the rate is high, it means more people are interested in your email, but if it is low, it means most people in your email list are not interested in your email; this might cause them to unsubscribe if you do not change your strategy. Email open rates can also tell you if your email marketing campaign needs change and improvement.