An email open refers to when a recipient opens an email you've sent. It's a key metric in email marketing and communications, helping to gauge engagement and effectiveness.
How Is an Email Open Tracked?
Email opens are typically tracked using an invisible tracking pixel, a tiny 1x1 pixel image embedded in the email. Here’s how it works:
- Email Sent – When you send an email with tracking enabled, an invisible image is included in the email body.
- Recipient Opens the Email – When the recipient opens the email, their email client (e.g., Outlook, Gmail) loads the tracking pixel from the sender’s server.
- Open Recorded – The email service detects that the image was loaded and logs an "open" for that recipient.
Limitations of Open Tracking
- Image Blocking: Some email clients block images by default, preventing tracking pixels from loading.
- Privacy Protections: Features like Apple's Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) pre-load images, which can lead to inflated open rates.
- Plain-Text Emails: If an email is sent in plain text without images, opens can’t be tracked.
Because of these limitations, open rates are useful for general trends but should not be the sole metric for engagement. Click-through rates and conversions provide a more accurate measure of user interaction.