The Open Rate is most useful when you are doing email marketing or send messages on other channels. It is defined as the ratio between the people who open your messages and the amount of people you sent messages to in the first place.
Calculation:
There are a lot of base metrics going into the calculation of this metric , such as Email opened, Forwards open, Opening count, Open total, Unique opens, Opens unsubscribed and Unopened rate.
Reasons to track Open Rate
If you are doing Email marketing, this might be one of the most important metrics for you. By looking at your Open Rates, you will know how effective your wording of your subjects are. If you further differentiate between unsubscribed and subscribed opens, the value of your findings increases even further. So tracking Open rates in order to get to know your target audience better, could provide a lot of value to you.
Common variations of Open Rate
| Name | Description | Platform |
|---|---|---|
| Email opened | Also known as Opening count. Measures the amount of times your messages were opened (typically not unique). | SAP Marketing Cloud, MailXpert |
| Forwards Open | Measures the amount of times a forwarded message has been opened. | Mailchimp |
| Unique Opens | Unique Opens show the amount of people who have opened your messages. | Salesforce, Mailchimp |
| Opens unsubscribed | People who have opened messages of yours but are not on your subscriber list. | Mailchimp |
| Unopen Rate | The ratio between number of people who have not opened your message and the number of people you sent your message to. | Mailchimp |
How can tracking Open Rates help you to become more data-driven?
Analyzing the performance of your e-mail marketing strategy is essential to become more effective and efficient in content marketing. Since there are many metrics around email marketing you can possibly find interesting correlations between them, which allows you to comprehend the behaviour of the receiver of your messages.
This is really valuable since it provides you with additional information to create tailor-made messages for your target audience and helps you to create a better understanding for your potential customers.
Download our free ebook to learn the fundamentals of data-drivenness with 17 marketing KPIs!
Additional information about Open Rates
- Email Marketing Benchmarks by Industry
- The science behind email open rates (and how to get more people to read your emails)
- What’s a Good Email Open Rate and How You Can Improve Yours