 We all look at our email open rates, but what can you do with these metrics? How do you interpret email open tracking data? What are the best actions to take to optimize email marketing campaign response based on open tracking?
Before we start, it is useful to understand exactly how email "opens" are actually tracked. What all good email marketing systems do is the following: a tiny invisible image (1x1 pixel) is inserted into the HTML component of an email. When this image is downloaded from the email marketing system server, the system tracks which email address downloaded the image, exactly what time the image was downloaded, and from which IP address the image was downloaded.
This means that we are not really tracking opens, we are tracking image downloads. It is possible to open a text-only email and spend half an hour reading it without the open being tracked. It is also possible to open an HTML email and read the text without downloading images.
Email open rate tracking, however, is very useful indeed. There are two main ways of looking at the results:
1. Open rates by email campaign
2. Open rates by email recipient
Open Rates by Email Campaign
On an email campaign basis, one of the most useful reports is the open rate by time of send. The report below shows that for this type of campaign, from this sender to this recipient base, sending at the end of the day is more effective than sending at the beginning of the day:
It is very important that the only factor that changes when comparing open rates for email marketing campaigns is the time of send. It is not useful to compare the time-of-send open rate if one email is a short sale message with a great discount and the next email is an editorial email with long content. The email list segment should also be constant because you will get a stronger open rate from subscribers who have been through an email welcome program, compared to people who have joined up as a result of a competition. The graph above, for example, is comparing email newsletters sent only to customers (not prospects).
Open Rates by Email Recipients
 If you study your email open rates by recipient, you will see different cohorts emerging with different levels of engagement.
* Open rate for each email recipient is defined as the volume of email opened as a percent of email messages sent
* Just under a third of the recipient base has not opened any email marketing messages
* However, 10% open at least 50% of email marketing
It is very useful to know the percentage of your email list that has not opened an email in the last 6 months. For this group of inactive email subscribers you should think about a reactivation campaign. Here is an example of a reactivation email from a French Fashion Magazine:
This translates as:
Hello,
You are currently subscribed to our FashionMag.com newsletter on this email address.
We have noticed that you have not clicked on any links in the newsletter in the last 6 months.
Would you like to continue receiving our newsletter?
Yes
No
Kind Regards,
The Fashion Mag team
This is interesting because it is quite a bold strategy. I also like the fact that the email format is text only. Text-only email messages are effective at re-engaging non-openers. Often HTML email can be classified as junk by spam filters if the images are not downloaded regularly by the recipients. So some recipients in the non-opener category are not even seeing your HTML email messages.
That's why you should always use text-only for re-engagement email campaigns. Text-only email messages also appear to be more of a service message than a marketing message. They appeal to a different set of responders in our subconscious email triage systems. They look more like email messages that have been written by our colleagues or friends.
Text-only email also increases the response rates to email marketing campaigns if deployed as a follow up to non-openers. You can read more on this topic here:
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