Open Rates

How are my campaign opens tracked?

When building an email, we include a single-pixel gif tracking image (sometimes called a web beacon) within the content of the message. When the recipient opens the message, the tracking image is referenced. When they click a link or open an attachment, another tracking code is activated. In each case, a separate tracking event is recorded by the system.

What if images aren’t downloaded?

It is very common for an email to be opened and read without the recipient choosing to download the images. If this occurs, it is not possible to track the open. When this occurs, it is referred to as an "untrackable" open.

Our research shows that at least 21% of education staff working in schools will often open an email, but not download the images. Therefore, an untrackable average of 21% is included in your campaign’s total open rate.

What is an untrackable open?

An email open is tracked when a link is clicked, or a 1x1 pixel graphic (called a beacon), which is inserted into the email, is downloaded. This happens when a recipient opts to 'download images', so, if an email is opened, but the recipient does not download images, then it will not register as an open.

It's generally an accepted metric within the email marketing world that open rates can be inaccurate by 43%. Here is one such report of one of the world's leading email testing organisations - Litmus: https://litmus.com/blog/gmail-data-analysis-reveals-image-blocking-affects-43-of-emails. This research found that 43% of Gmail users read emails without turning images on, and when looking across all ESPs 26% of users were found to read emails without turning images on.

Our 21% is a statistic that, through our own research when polling teachers' inbox habits, was the average percentage of emails that they opened and read but did not choose to view/download the images, meaning these types of school staff members would not register as a “trackable” open. To provide a conservative yet accurate statistic that is in line with our education sector-specific research, we only add on 21%, as our research is solely education sector focused, whilst Litmus’s (and others) is taken from research across all sectors.

Are untrackable opens included in my total opens?

Yes. Our research shows that at least 21% of education staff working in schools will open an email but not download the images. Therefore, the untrackable average of 21% is included in your campaign’s total open rates.

What is the education sector's average open rate?

The education sector's average open rate (including untrackable opens) when emailing schools without Sprint Education’s support is currently 22.3%.

My email doesn’t have any images, so how is it tracked?

Even if your HTML has no images on the face of it, it will still include a 1x1 invisible tracking image (a single-pixel gif, sometimes called a web beacon) within the content of the message.

When the recipient opens the message, the tracking image is referenced. When they click a link or open an attachment, another tracking code is activated. In each case, a separate tracking event is recorded by the system.

How are my total opens calculated?

Your total opens is a combined number comprising of all recipient opens, multiple opens (by the same recipient), untrackable opens, and opened forwarded emails. Opens from bots are not included within your total opens.

Why do I have an open rate of over 100%?

This can occur because the total opens includes recipients that have opened an email more than once, or have forwarded the email on to several/many colleagues/students who too have gone on to open the email. This can result in a huge spike in opens which, on rare occasions, can exceed 100%.

Why do my opens appear so high?

The reason why your email open rates are appearing higher than in the past could be down to the fact that you've sent a great campaign that has really engaged your audience and encouraged them to open it. Also, when a recipient forwards your email to other people and they open it, those opens clock up too. Consider sending an email to a teacher who then forwards it to all their students - that could multiply your open counts by ten times or more.

A high open count may also be down to Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP). This is a system introduced in September 2021 by Apple for its users to have the choice to have their actions hidden by companies emailing them. MPP will affect any email opened from an Apple Mail app on any device. It will hide a recipient’s IP address, so senders can’t link it to the recipient's activity.

MPP triggers the download of the email from the email host (e.g. Campus, Yahoo or Google), and at indeterminate intervals, Apple will download all of the images in the email including the tracking pixel. These images are then copied to a new location on the Apple Privacy Cache. This makes it look like all Apple Mail users have opened the email (when they haven’t).

If an email is then genuinely opened by an Apple Mail user, it triggers a request to download the images. However, the request goes to Apple’s cached images, not the sender's server (where non-MPP users download their images from), which results in the “real” open not being visible. For this reason the MPPs will increase your open rate stats with opens that are not derived from a real person.

Unfortunately, like all email systems globally we are not able to prevent this, and is another reason why open rates within the email marketing industry as a whole is being viewed more as a 'vanity' stat and less of an important KPI such as click rates, landing page visits/web traffic, direct enquires and form submissions.