How to get insight from questionable email open rates
Summary
Apple's privacy update inflated email open rates. Here is how to analyse them with send time, day, subject line and click rate so the metric earns its keep.
Open rates changed meaning after Apple's privacy update. They still tell you something, if you analyse them in context.
Apple's Mail Privacy Protection update changed digital marketing analytics. Emails can now be counted as opened when they are received rather than actually read, which inflates the open rate.
That has led some outlets to suggest open rates are no longer a useful measure of marketing success. Our stance has always been that conversions deserve the most attention, but that does not make open rates useless. They just need a new approach to analysis.
How open rates are still useful
Rather than treating open rate as a stand-alone metric, analyse the broader picture. Several factors influence how an email performs:
Subject line: what is the value for the reader?
Content and design: is it appealing enough to read to the end?
Sending time and day: when are your customers online and engaging?
Targeting: is the email relevant to the individual customer?
Click rate: have you included enough links and buttons?
Keep those questions in mind when crafting emails. They also become the columns you compare against your open rate.
Set up your own open rate analysis
A simple spreadsheet is all you need to get started. Log one row per campaign: the campaign name, date, day, whether it went out AM or PM, the send time, the open rate and the click rate.
This fictional sample shows what to track. After a few weeks of campaigns, patterns start to appear.
Example email open rate analysis
Here are the kinds of takeaways the sheet above can give you:
Sending times
Regular Monday emails perform better later in the morning
Afternoon sending times generally produce higher open rates
Days
Emails sent towards the end of the week get higher open rates, as customers are already planning their free time
Mid-week reminders work best combined with an afternoon send time
Click rate
Relevant, limited offers with a clear call to action raise click rates, because customers have a reason to book a table or a room
Personalised content, such as a loyal-customer or new-menu offer, also lifts click rates
Subject lines
Reminder emails get higher open rates when they create urgency: 'last chance', 'secure now'
Vague subject lines ('special events to mark', '2 events coming up') underperform
Including your venue name makes the email instantly recognisable and more relevant
Personal and targeted sends
The highest open rates come from emails that use the customer's name in the subject line
A new menu offer sent only to loyal customers makes them feel valued
Automate what you learn
Once you know what works, workflows can send the right campaign at the right time to the right people without manual effort. Or book a demo and talk through your email marketing with the team.
See it running on your venues
One unified guest record across Wi-Fi, bookings, reviews and loyalty, and the marketing that acts on it.