According to experts, a good email open rate should range from 17 to 28 percent, depending on the company. But it's important to research your particular industry averages and compare your data.

You'll have a better sense of how frequently people look forward to your emails and how effective your subject lines are if you know your company's email open rate.

You will therefore discover how to determine your email rate in this piece. But first, let's understand what an email open rate is for.

What is an Email Open Rate for?

Email open rate displays the proportion of subscribers out of all of your subscribers who open a certain email. It provides the recipients of your email campaign with a measure indicating the campaign's success or failure.

The outcomes of this study can help you decide whether you need to do more and examine additional related variables to optimize your emails. Your main objective is to raise the open rate if it is low.

Email Open Rate Calculation Formula

There are several open email rate formulas we can consider:

Formula #1: Open rate = (total unique opens ÷ total recipients) x 100

You need to know how many email addresses are on your mailing list to use this calculation to get the open rate (total recipients). How many folks actually open your email? (Total unique opens).

With these, you can multiply the result by 100 after dividing the number of opens by the total number of recipients.

Note: You only need the unique opens for this computation. Therefore, a recipient who opens the same email twice or more will only count as one unique open.

Formula #2: Open rate = (total unique opens ÷ (total recipients – bounced emails)) x 100

You will receive an accurate open rate using this method, which focuses on engagements. You may need to discern the following information to use this formula:

  • The number of email addresses on your mailing list (Total recipients)
  • How many people read your email? (Total unique opens).
  • How many emails were unsuccessful in reaching the inbox (Bounced emails)

How Do You Calculate Email Open Rate for Multiple Campaigns?

Let's use this example to demonstrate how to calculate the email open rate for multiple campaigns.

Your open rates for your three most recent email campaigns were as follows:

  • Campaign A: 12%
  • Campaign B: 18%
  • Campaign C: 20%

Adding them all together and dividing by three will give you the average open rate for your email campaigns:

(16 + 20 + 22) ÷ 3 = 19.3%

Difference Between the Open Rate and the Click-to-open Rates

Primarily, the effectiveness of subject lines and pre-inbox optimization determines the open rate, while the click rate reveals whether the email design was successful.

The click-to-open rate (CTOR), which combines the open rate and click rate into one statistic, provides information on the proportion of recipients that clicked the CTA in the email. In fact, it assesses how successful and relevant the email's content is.

Consider a scenario in which 200 potential clients opened your email campaign, but only 66 of them chose to click the CTA link. Utilize the following formula to determine the Click-to-open rate:

click-to-open rate = (total unique clicks ÷ total unique opens) x 100

  • CTOR= 66 ÷ 200 x 100
  • CTOR = 0.33 or 33%

Different Ways to Track Email Opens

It is either you are using tracking email open pixels or trackable links, which are popular among top email service providers. Although the read-receipt tracking system, which is currently hardly utilized, is an option.

1. Tracking pixels

An HTML snippet with a unique tracking number is called a tracking pixel and is included in the email. Even though this performance indication is not entirely precise, the tracking number indicates that the email has been viewed when the receiver loads it. Many marketing platforms and email services, such as MailSlurp or Amazon SES, employ it since it is one of the most trustworthy methods of tracking opens.

Trackable links are auto-generated with tracking software, inserted into email content, and made visible to the recipients. So when the recipient clicks on this link, you get information about who opened the email and when.

3. Read receipts

You can find out if an email has been opened or not by using read receipts. Because of the way it operates, it is not dependable. You will need to email the receiver and include a receipt request in the hopes that they will agree to receive a read receipt. You won't ever know if an email is opened if the recipient's email client's settings do not permit read receipts.

How to Know If Your Open Rate is Good or Not?

Typically, the open rate depends on the following:

  • Email type
  • Target region
  • Sending date and time
  • Recipient’s device

But to know if your open rate is good, observe the following benchmarks from experts in MailSlurp.

Reaction

If you want to improve your email open rate, do the following:

  • Identify the sender properly.
  • Use your company's logo.
  • Make minor adjustments to the subject line, aiming for a maximum of 90 characters.
  • Send pertinent emails that are clear, appealing, and individualized.

Always test an email campaign before deploying it!

Conclusion

You will be able to figure out how many times your emails are opened if you rightfully calculate your email open rate. The results can improve your sending frequency or perhaps cause you to review your email campaign strategy and get it right. Services like MailSlurp as free and can help improve your email open rate.