Understanding Email Open Rates

What is an open rate?

Open rate is a measure of how many people on an email list open (or view) a particular email campaign. The open rate is normally expressed as a percentage, and we calculate it as follows.

So a 20% open rate would mean that of every 10 emails delivered to the inbox, 2 were actually opened.

How do you measure an open?

When each email is sent out, we automatically add a piece of code that requests a tiny, invisible image from our web servers. So when a reader opens the email, the image is downloaded, and we can record that download as an open for that specific email. Read more

Increase Your Email Open Rate By Improving Your Subject Lines

Just like a direct sales letter, the subject line of your email is usually the most important part of getting your readers to actually read your email. If you have a compelling subject line the chance of your email improves dramatically.

According to a recent MarketingSherpa.com survey, 40% of email marketers said testing changes to just their subject line had a high impact on their return on investment (ROI). 45% said subject line changes accounted for a medium ROI and only 15% said that testing changes to their subject line results in a low ROI.

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Strategies for Email Marketing

While the main value of email marketing is to drive traffic to your web site, there are other important reasons that emails can be used in promoting your business. Here are some strategies to develop that will help your email marketing be even more successful.

Establish Brand Identification

Nothing is more fundamental to marketing than branding. Using emails to strengthen your brand is easy – and essential. This is achieved through appropriate use fonts and graphics. The vast majority of email users have the ability to receive HTML email – graphic email. And HTML email more than doubles the response rate of plain text email. Be consistent in your tone and always choose content that will matter to your customers. Read more