Email open rates are still worth glancing at, but not worth judging a campaign on. Since Apple introduced Mail Privacy Protection, many opens are recorded automatically whether or not anyone read the email, so open rates run higher than reality. Clicks, and the bookings or sales that follow, are the numbers to judge email by.
What changed
Apple introduced Mail Privacy Protection with iOS 15, iPadOS 15, macOS Monterey and watchOS 8 in September 2021. When it is switched on, Apple Mail loads images, including the tiny tracking pixel email platforms use to detect an open, in the background. As Klaviyo explains, it has no way to tell a real human open from an automated one for those subscribers.
The result: anyone using Apple Mail with the setting on can count as an open even if they never looked at the email.
What open rate is still useful for
- Spotting deliverability problems. A sudden, steep drop in opens across every campaign often means emails are landing in spam.
- Comparing campaigns sent to the same list. The inflation affects every send roughly equally, so a subject line that does clearly better still stands out.
- Watching the trend over months. A slow slide can mean the list is getting tired.
What it can't do is tell you how many people actually read your email.
The email numbers to watch instead
| Number | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Click rate | Share of delivered emails that got a click. The clearest sign of real interest. |
| Click-to-open rate | Clicks divided by opens. Shows how good the content was, but it is pulled down by inflated opens. |
| Conversions or revenue per email | What the email actually produced: bookings, orders, enquiries. |
| Unsubscribe rate | Whether you are sending too often or to the wrong segment. Watch for sudden jumps. |
| List growth | Whether you are adding subscribers faster than you lose them. |
What is a good click rate?
It depends on your industry, list and type of email, so the most useful benchmark is your own. Compare each campaign with your recent average and look at which subject lines, offers and layouts lift clicks over time.
Put email next to everything else
Email results mean more when you can see them beside your ads and website traffic. A campaign that gets a modest click rate but lines up with a jump in bookings is doing its job.
In Metrcs, every Klaviyo campaign sits on the same dashboard as your ads and website, with recipients, open rate, click rate and unsubscribes side by side, so one inflated metric doesn't drive the decision.
Ardjuna founded Flow Digital, a marketing agency in Bali that runs ads, websites, email and content for its clients. He built Metrcs so the agency could see every client’s marketing on one page and spend less time on reports.
