As email marketers know, open rates on email marketing campaigns have been dropping for years. This is because all email marketing applications measure open rates by waiting for a tiny image embedded in the email to be downloaded by the person reading the email. However, when email applications like Outlook or Gmail block images by default, this tiny image is not downloaded and an open is not recorded even if the recipient actually read the email.
So the question arises as to whether open rates are still a useful metric for measuring email marketing success when open rates are falling for technological reasons rather than due to any change in subscriber behavior. That is, should you still care about open rates?
We agree with the argument of Joshua Baer that open rates remain useful as a short term diagnostic metric. That is, if your open rate drops drastically within a short timeframe, then you know something is wrong. For example, maybe a domain with alot of subscribers on your list has started blocking your emails. If you've been monitoring open rates, you'll know you need to take corrective action.
Additionally, open rates are good for testing. For example, you may want to test two different subject lines to see which one works better. The change in open rate, if any, between otherwise identical emails but with different subject lines can help pinpoint the better choice.
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