• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

OrganicWeb

Mailchimp Training & Consulting

  • Home
  • Services
    • Mailchimp Training
    • Mailchimp Consulting
  • Free Tools
    • Mailchimp Tutorials on YouTube
    • Subject Line Generator
    • Marketing Ideas Generator
    • Map Maker for Email
    • WhatsApp Click to Chat Generator
    • Avoid Email Going to Spam
    • Email Link Generator
    • Is Mailchimp Down?
    • Marketing Facts and Stats
  • Content
    • Blog
    • Videos
  • Contact & About
    • Contact
    • About

How is the email marketing open rate measured?

The two primary measures in email marketing are open and click rates. Most of us know that that an ‘open’ implies that the recipient has taken an action to read an email. A click is quite simply a click on a hyperlink in the email campaign.

How to calculate the open rate

That sounds simple enough but the open rate isn’t typically calculated as the proportion of all emails sent that were opened. The calculation for the open rate is calculated by Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor, Constant Contact and numerous other marketing services as the proportion of emails sent, minus bounces, that were opened.

How does Mailchimp know that an email has been opened?

When you send an HTML email campaign, most email marketing providers insert a small transparent image that leads to a unique tracking URL. When that image is opened by the recipients email reader, the email marketing service knows that the image has been loaded by the recipient and the email is determined as opened by that recipient.

Because measurement of opens relies on the image being loaded, if the recipient has images blocked, an open won’t be recorded even if the recipient has in fact read the email. Open rates are not therefore entirely accurate.

How does Mailchimp know an email address has bounced?

A bounce is a non-delivery of a sent message. Your email service knows that a message couldn’t be delivered as it may be informed by the receiving email server if there is an issue or, alternately, your sending service may not be able to connect to the receiving server (read more about checking which of your email addresses will bounce).

There are two primary categories of bounces that are reported in most email marketing platforms; hard bounces and soft bounces.

A hard bounce is a permanent delivery issue and include instances such as where the sending email address was spelt incorrectly and where a person is no longer available at the email address.

A soft bounce is typically a temporary delivery issue such as a connection not being possible between the sending service as the receiving email server.

I hope that this article helped with queries you may have about email marketing open rates. Please leave a comment below if you have questions.

Found this useful? Please share:

Related

  • Learn about Mailchimp email marketing open rates
  • How to send an attachment in Mailchimp
  • Should you verify email addresses?

Filed Under: Marketing

Watch Gary in action

Gary frequently adds Mailchimp instructional videos to his YouTube channel. Subscribe to keep updated.

→  Subscribe   ←

How to add an editable attachment to a Mailchimp campaign.

How to add, and send, coupon codes in Mailchimp.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. oggendlied says

    July 10, 2020 at 8:29 am

    Hi Gary,
    Thanks for this. What I wonder about is that sometimes Mailchimp shows that a client has opened an email 30 or 40 times. What makes these really high numbers? (I’m sure that the client isn’t actually opening it 30 times…) Thanks.

    Reply
    • Gary says

      July 10, 2020 at 1:52 pm

      These high open numbers usually illustrate that the contact has forwarded the email to other people who have then opened the email.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You are here: Home / Marketing / How is the email marketing open rate measured?

Primary Sidebar

Mailchimp write about my work

Read on Mailchimp.com

Learn from a Mailchimp Pro Partner

Signup to receive info about Gary's Mailchimp beginner and advanced classes.

Sign up

Gary on Australian National Radio

Changes are coming to the Australian Spam Act

Read Gary's article in SmartCompany

Meet Gary, Mailchimp Expert

Gary is a Mailchimp Expert and Partner. He delivers Mailchimp training and consulting services in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. Gary presents at Mailchimp events and hosts the first, and only, Australian Mailchimp sponsored event. He is M.B.A. qualified from Henley Business School, U.K.

Contact Gary for your Mailchimp needs

Footer

Customer Rating

Mailchimp Pro Partners

Contact

Contact Gary for all your Mailchimp training, consulting and integration needs.

Contact Gary.

Copyright © 2022 · Sitemap · ABN: 40800872179 · Privacy Policy · Terms of Service