An open used to mean someone looked at your email. Now a good share of opens happen with nobody there.
Where fake opens come from
- Apple Mail Privacy Protection, launched in 2021, loads email images in the background for Apple Mail users who turn it on. That registers as an open whether they read the email or not.
- Company email security opens messages and clicks every link to check them before the person ever sees the email.
- Link previews in chat apps fetch a link when an email gets forwarded or pasted.
Where it does the damage
The obvious cost is a flattering open rate. The bigger one is segments. An "engaged in the last 30 days" segment built on opens will happily include addresses that only a scanner ever touched.
We saw this with an imported list from a source heavy on company addresses. Their security scanners opened and clicked everything, so a list that had been paused qualified itself as engaged and landed in the next send. Those addresses opened more than anyone else on the account and bought nothing.
What to trust instead
- Orders, and especially confirmed orders, where the buyer clicked or used the email's code.
- Clicks that turn into a site visit or a purchase, not raw clicks.
- For segments, opens combined with purchases or site activity, not opens alone.
- When you pause a list, set it apart from your segments too, so scanner opens can't pull it back in.
Open rate still tells you something across many sends. It just can't be the number you judge one email by.