It is one of the most oft-quoted but least understood statistics when it comes to email marketing.

In a sense it seems thoroughly easy to grasp – it tells you how many people actually looked at your email.

But there’s a problem.  Consider the most common of email reading programs – Outlook Express.  Many people have Outlook Express set up so that they can read the opening of any email without actually clicking on anything.   How should an “open rate” measurement deal with that?  Indeed how can it, given that you are not clicking on anything, in order to read the email.

Unfortunately there is no agreement – which is why you can find some firms quoting incredibly high open rates for the reading of their emails, while others quote lower numbers.

To understand what open rates are, and how they work, we have an article: Open Rates, a Review of Statistics, which in non-technical language tells you just about all you’ll want to know.  Certainly if someone is quoting open rates at you, it is not a bad idea to have a look through.

The article is at

Tony Attwood

PS: I am about to go on my summer holiday – but my colleagues are all still doing their stuff at Hamilton House – do call them on 01536 399 000 if you would like talk through anything raised here.