While you were browsing through your reports in mailchimp you may have come across a section like the one below. This section clearly shows an open rate and a click rate but what exactly is the difference?
Open Rate
Open rate is the number of email subscribers that actually open the unread email in their inbox. When people haven’t opened the unread email in their inboxes the open rate will be low. There could be numerous reasons why they haven’t read your email as yet but no reason to worry they might just be busy at the moment.
Click Rate
Click rate is when an email subscriber has opened your marketing email and has actually clicked on one of the contents or call to actions in the actual email. Click rate can be a great indication of how engaging a particular email is with its target audience. Once again I must stress that click rate is not how many people have opened marketing emails.
Using both metrics
Both of these metrics can be important in accessing how engaged your mailing list is with your marketing emails. If you have a high open-rate but a very low click rate you might want to work on the design and copywriting in your actual marketing emails. Also, make sure that the content in your email is relevant to the email subscribers on your list. If you have a mailing list full of people interested in cars and you are sending them emails on jewelry they likely won’t open those emails at all.
If you have a low open rate and I high click rate you should focus your attention on the timing of your newsletter. You should also focus on writing enticing subject lines that will make someone actually want to open and read the email. Choosing a subject line that is generic and that doesn’t arouse curiosity is a sure-fire way to have a low open rate.
