Understanding your CRM email open and click rates
When you send email through Roundtable's CRM, your reports show how many recipients opened your message and clicked its links. These numbers are a useful starting point for understanding engagement, but it's important to know that open and click rates are estimates, not exact counts. Here's why, and how to read them well.
Why some opens and clicks aren't from real people
Open tracking works by placing an invisible image (pixel) in each email. When that image loads, it registers as an "open." Clicks are tracked the same way, through the links in your message. The catch is that people aren't the only thing loading images and links. Several automated systems do it too, before your recipient ever sees the email:
- Security scanners: Many organizations, especially government agencies, run incoming mail through protective software like Proofpoint or Microsoft's built-in protection. These tools automatically open emails and follow links to check that they're safe. That can register as an instant open and an instant click within seconds of sending.
- Inbox preloading: Some email services download a message's images and content ahead of time so it loads quickly when the recipient opens it. This can trigger an open before anyone reads anything.
- Apple Mail privacy: Apple Mail routes messages through its own servers and loads the tracking image for every email, whether or not the recipient opens it. For audiences with many Apple Mail users, this alone can push open rates toward 100%.
- Previews and sandbox checks: Preview panes and security "sandboxes" that scan attachments and links can also generate opens and clicks.
Because of all this, a portion of the opens and clicks in your reports come from machines, not members of your audience. You'll often spot these as opens or clicks that happen almost the instant a message is sent.
And some real opens never get counted
The same tracking has a blind spot in the other direction. If someone reads your email as plain text, has images turned off, uses an ad blocker that blocks the tracking image, or reads in an environment that doesn't load it, their open won't register even though they genuinely read your message. So your real open rate isn't simply "lower than reported," it's a mix of some opens that shouldn't count and some real ones that were missed.
How to read your metrics well
You can still get real value from these numbers by treating them as directional rather than precise:
- Look at trends, not single sends: Comparing this month's email to last month's tells you more than any one open rate on its own, because the automated "noise" tends to affect every send similarly.
- Trust clicks more than opens for true intent, but read them carefully: A genuine click on a specific, meaningful link (like a registration button or a document) is a stronger signal of interest than an open. Just keep in mind that security scanners click links too.
- Watch your own benchmarks: What counts as a "good" rate varies widely by audience and message type. Your most reliable comparison is your own past performance with the same audience.
- Combine email metrics with other signals: Replies, form submissions, event sign-ups, and follow-up actions in the CRM are concrete outcomes that automated systems don't produce, so they tell you more about real engagement than opens alone.