by Susana Fonticoba
An email marketing software platform, like Constant Contact, tracks email opens by placing a tiny, invisible image inside each email. It does not affect the look of the email and is standard practice in the email marketing industry. When someone opens the email and their inbox loads the images, Constant Contact’s server recognizes that the invisible image was loaded and records that as an open.
An “open” really means the email was loaded in a way Constant Contact could detect. If the email appears in a preview pane, that also may count as an open.
The formula to calculate open rates is: Open rate = Unique opens / Emails sent minus bounces x 100
So if you send to 1,000 contacts, 50 bounce, and 300 unique people open the email, the open rate is based on 300 divided by 950.
It’s No Longer Clear Cut
Today’s technology has made things more complicated, so that tracking “opens” is not reliable. In just one of many examples, Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection changed how opens are reported for people using Apple Mail. Because Apple may preload email content for privacy reasons, Constant Contact may not be able to reliably tell which specific Apple Mail users truly opened the email. This can make open data less precise. Other email platforms have similar protection protocols.
Also, if a recipient’s email program blocks images, the tracking pixel may not load. In that case, the person could have opened or even read the email, but Constant
Contact may not record the open.
Take Note of “Confirmed opens” vs. “proxy opens”
An open counts as a “confirmed open” when the software has certainty that the open was
performed by a person and not a bot. One example is when a link within the email
is clicked. If the platform can’t be sure that a person did the opening, the open is
categorized as a “proxy open.”
There are a couple of reasons an open can be categorized as a “proxy open:”
- Images Preloaded By An Email Provider – Certain email clients, like Gmail,
Yahoo, and Apple Mail, preload the images in emails, including the
transparent single-pixel image that marketers use to track email opens. This
pre-fetching of images results in faster image loading when a contact does
open the email, but it also results in an open being tracked before an
actual person opens the email. If the software can tell that an open came from
pre-fetching, it’s categorized as a “proxy open.” - Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) – Some mail apps, like Apple Mail, have built-
in privacy protections that can prevent us from tracking opens correctly. This
protects the privacy of the email’s recipient, but it also means that we can’t
reliably track these opens, and your open rate can become falsely inflated. If
we can tell that an open came from a known privacy protection tool, like
Apple Mail Privacy Protection, we instead categorize it as a “proxy open.”
Should We Look at Open Rates ?
Open rates are still useful as a trend indicator. Look at whether opens are rising,
falling, or staying steady over time. To gauge real engagement, clicks are usually a
stronger signal because they tell us that the reader took action. Constant Contact
calculates click rate based on unique clicks divided by successfully delivered emails.
Open rates help us understand whether the subject line, sender name, timing, and
audience relevance are encouraging people to look at the email. A strong email
campaign should be judged by a combination of open rate, click rate, bounce rate,
unsubscribes, replies, conversions, and whether the email supports the larger
business goal.
Emails In Action
I hear small business owners doubt whether email marketing still works in the age of social media. “No one reads emails” I’m told.
To that, I can only share my own experience. When I send a campaign, I’ll often get replies (real ones – from real people) within the hour — “hey, great topic”, or simply, “this was really good, thanks for sharing.”
Even recently, I was sitting at a restaurant, and noticed a woman enter who looked familiar, though I couldn’t place her name. She saw me, too, and said, “Hi Susana! I’ve been reading your emails, and I liked the one you just sent.”
Embarrassed, I asked her name again — and once she told me, I remembered her, and how we’d met more than 10 years ago! If I never bothered to send regular emails, she likely would have just walked past. Instead, our connection still felt very much alive.
Let’s put it simply: your monthly emails keep folks from forgetting about you. It’s an easy goal to meet.
