Newsletter open rate is a bad benchmark

If you want to succeed with your newsletter you shouldn’t focus on the open rate.

It doesn’t look good for marketers that are working with newsletters and marketing automations after the latest iOS release, where the users gets a set of new features, such as hiding the phone's IP address, hiding if the email is getting opened or forwarded.

iOS-15 is the fifteenth major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple for its iPhone and iPod Touch products. It was announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 7, 2021 and was released on September 20, 2021.

With the latest iOS-15 release, email marketers can’t rely on newsletter success by measuring the regular email stats anymore. But it isn’t just negative, as there in many years have been issues by using the open rate as a measurable success factor. In fact, for several years now, there have been problems with the opening rate as a benchmark for newsletters. And therefore, it is an obvious opportunity to change the measurement of newsletters in 2021.

Email open rates is a misleading metrics

The problem is that the opening rate has been exposed to several technical automations over the last five years. For example, spam filters make false openings to obscure spam traps and to test destination links. We've also seen that Gmail makes fake openings in connection with its image caching. It obscures the opening rate.?

Another major challenge of the opening rate is the lack of images loading in newsletters. Most email clients record opening rates by seeing when an invisible image is opened. However, many email clients do not choose to display the images, which means that the email marketing tools often do not register the email as opened.

Therefore, the opening rate has long been not a particularly good measurement parameter for email campaigns. It does not change iOS-15. iOS-15 simply emphasizes the need to focus on the right data.

Going forward, the focus should be on the right interactions in your email campaigns. That is, to get the recipients to click on your content.

Of course, there is a branding value in an email. But the real value is that the recipients feel like moving on; on to your content, on to your webshop, etc.

A renewed focus on your email campaigns

IOS-15 has given a renewed focus on the fact that opening rates are not the best measurement parameter. Since the opening rates, for many, have historically been the parameter that is easiest to see and the easiest to communicate to non-marketers, there is thus a task in educating and educating the marketing stakeholders that it is something else that has value.

However, several email marketing platforms can already estimate how much of the campaign should have been opened on iOS devices based on opens and the well-known Apple share of the market.

Thus, it will still be possible to work with the opening rate as a known benchmark, and thus continue to be able to present the known parameters to those who are interested in them.

The change in opening rates that iOS-15 is expected to bring about will therefore not necessarily have the major practical impact for us as marketers. But it is another step in the direction that we must focus on the important thing rather than opening rates: To create good content and generate clicks on to websites and webshops.

The new measures

Have you thought about how you can get the most out of your newsletters after Apple removes the ability to track openings on newsletters?

The tech giant removes the ability to track openings rates on emails to better protect users' data when Apple rolls out the iOS 15 update this fall. But it is also a big issue for the companies or marketers that work with newsletters as part of their marketing.

This certainly means that our opening rate statistics are becoming more inaccurate. And the opening rate becomes a much less valuable statistic

What about Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo?

We will have to sort all data for newsletters opened in the Apple Mail app from our statistics. Then we can still make a number, but it gets worse because something is missing. That is an indicative figure we can show our customers.?

Therefore companies and marketers should prepare for similar initiatives to be introduced by other mail providers.

It's a matter of time before it's also taken up by Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo mail. Right now, we are not losing the data from them and that makes them worth more. But once one has completed this, the others also explore the possibility of doing the same. Privacy is a trend that more and more users are demanding because it makes sense to them.

What to measure now?

• Click-through rate (CTR) measures how many people clicked on the links in your email. Click-through rates are typically much lower than open rates. The average click-through rate for most campaigns is slightly over 4%.
• While CTR measures how many people clicked on the links, your conversion rate will assess how many people clicked on the link and then completed a specific action. For example, if you included a link in your email for your subscribers to participate in a sales campaign, the conversion rate would tell you what percentage of the people who clicked the link made a purchase.

Conversion rates give you unique insight into your return on investment. When you know how much you have spent and how many subscribers are converting, it’s easier to determine whether or not the money you are putting into your campaign is paying off.

Enrollment rate is obviously important, but it is actually just as important to keep an eye on the unsubscribe rate. A healthy unsubscribe rate should be at a low level. As a rule, one should try to keep one's unsubscription rate below 2%, and the number of unsubscribed users should always be lower than the number of new registered recipients.

If your unsubscribe rate suddenly starts to rise, it's time to ask yourself a few questions. Consider e.g. how often you send emails and feel free to do a few split tests to identify what mistakes you may be making.

How to measure your newsletter?

The science behind email metrics and how to use email marketing to engage with your subscribers.

• Open rate (OR) is calculated as = (Opened emails / Delivered emails) x 100
• CTR is calculated as = (Click in emails / Delivered emails) x 100
• Unique clicks and UOR are calculated as = (Unique clicks or unique openings / Delivered emails) x 100
• Click-to-open rate is calculated as = (Unique clicks / Unique openings) x 100
• Bounce rate is calculated as = (Returned emails / Sent emails) x 100
• Unsubscribe rate is calculated as = (Unsubscribed users / Sent emails) x 100
• Conversion rate is calculated as = (Number of users who have completed a desired action / Delivered emails) x 100?
• ROI is calculated as = [(Campaign Revenue - Campaign Expenses) / Campaign Expenses] x 100

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