How is an open counted, and why did it break?
An email tool counts an open when a tiny invisible image inside the email is loaded. For twenty years that meant a person had the email on screen. In September 2021 Apple's Mail Privacy Protection, on by default for most iPhone, iPad and Mac users, began loading those images in the background whether or not the email was ever read, and from a server rather than the reader's device. Every email delivered to Apple Mail now counts as opened. In Australia, where iPhones are the majority, that is most of a consumer list.
The email tools say so themselves. Mailchimp's and Klaviyo's reporting notes both flag Apple opens as unreliable and offer views that exclude them. The number did not become useless, it became a ceiling: an open rate can tell you a subject line failed badly, and little else.
Why does the click rate still work?
A click is a person acting. Nothing pre-loads a click. It is a smaller number, which is why owners prefer opens, but it is a real one, and it is the first step of the only thing an email is for: getting someone to a page, a product, a booking form or a phone number. The sums are short.
Open rate = opens ÷ emails delivered
Click rate = clicks ÷ emails delivered
60 clicks ÷ 2,000 delivered = 3 percent
Clicks divided by delivered, not by opened. Dividing by opens gives the click-to-open rate, which inherits the broken open count.
What does one email earn? (example figures)
A Launceston bookshop sends a monthly email to 2,000 subscribers about new arrivals, with a link to each book.
| Count | Rate | |
|---|---|---|
| Delivered | 2,000 | |
| Opened (as reported) | 880 | 44 percent, most of it Apple Mail loading images |
| Clicked | 62 | 3.1 percent |
| Bought within three days, from the email's link | 9 | 14.5 percent of clickers |
| Revenue | $414 at an average order of $46 |
The email cost the owner an hour and the monthly plan. $414 from one send is a good hour, and the number that predicted it was 62, not 880. The month the click rate fell to 1.9 percent was the month the subject line was "October newsletter"; the month it reached 4 percent, the subject line was the title of the one book everyone in Launceston was asking about.
What moves the click rate?
The subject line decides whether the email is opened by a human; the first two lines and the first link decide whether it is clicked. One clear thing to click, near the top, beats six. A link in the first sentence beats a button at the bottom. Sending to the people who clicked something in the last six months, rather than everyone, raises the rate and protects your sender reputation at the same time. And a list that grows from customers and people who asked to be on it clicks; a list bought or scraped does not, and it damages the deliverability of everything else you send.
What does Cora do with email rates?
CoraVision does not read your email tool's reports yet; Mailchimp and Klaviyo are taught in CoraVersity by Mabel and Kai, their specialists, and when an email tactic is in your action plan they talk you through the campaign report on your own screen, click rate first. Dune, the creative director, designs the newsletter in your brand in the Design Studio, and you send it from your own tool. Once Google Analytics 4 is connected, CoraVision reads the visits and purchases that arrived from email every night, so the sales behind the clicks show up in the numbers Cora reads.
Questions
What is a good open rate?
Since 2021 the honest answer is that nobody knows yours, because Apple Mail opens emails on your behalf. Mailchimp and Klaviyo publish averages by industry, and both now warn that opens are inflated. Compare your own click rate month to month instead.
Should I stop sending to people who never open?
Stop sending to people who never click, and give it six months before you decide. Some of your best customers read on an iPhone with images off and never register an open at all.
Is click rate the same as click-to-open rate?
No. Click rate divides clicks by emails delivered. Click-to-open rate divides clicks by opens, which inherits the broken open count, so it is less useful than it used to be.