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I'm getting replies to an email with a 0% open rate! How is this even possible?

by David Braybrooke
8 replies
One for the Autoresponder tech experts. An email in my followup series is displaying a 0% open rate yet I am getting replies (Re: ) in my inbox, from real people, almost on a daily basis. WTF!?

Other emails in the followup series have reasonably decent open rates, yet nobody responds to them. Just saying.

Am I going nuts or something!? Perhaps I should change to the competition. (And I thought I was with the 'best'???)

PS - I know I can contact support, yet again, so please feel free not to remind me of that option.
#email #open #rate #replies
  • Profile picture of the author Dani78
    open rates are not accurate, they use html
    (a pixel has to load or js maybe), so obviously people are
    opening.
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  • Profile picture of the author StanHyeck
    Just like Dani said, a pixel has to load. LOTS of people don't automatically load images which messes up the tracking of the open rate.

    It's why the only real metric that actually matters is what I call the "action rate" on my messages. The percentage of click throughs, or email replies, or whatever action that message was meant to try and get.

    And really it doesn't matter how many people are READING your messages. It really doesn't.

    All that matters is how many people are taking ACTION based on them.

    So I periodically clean out my lists. I give someone maybe at most 20 consecutive messages. If after 20 messages they haven't taken some kind of action clearly their interest isn't really there ... and I remove them from my list.

    It's why I have lists with 20,000 that stomp the daylights out of people with multiple millions in their list. My people take action. When they aren't interested and aren't taking action, why waste their time with something they no longer want?

    It keeps everyone happier and I've found I actually make A LOT more and for far less effort on top of it.
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  • Profile picture of the author dean20653
    Not am email marketer Just wanted to offer a possible reason??

    Could it be that the open rate is less than 1%? You send out 1,500 emails and 8 were opened that wouldn't be 1% yet

    Unless Open rates are measured in decimals? (0.2%) Idk Just throwing an option out, it will be good to see what first-handers have to say on the subject!
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    • Profile picture of the author David Braybrooke
      Originally Posted by dean20653 View Post

      Not am email marketer Just wanted to offer a possible reason??

      Could it be that the open rate is less than 1%? You send out 1,500 emails and 8 were opened that wouldn't be 1% yet

      Unless Open rates are measured in decimals? (0.2%) Idk Just throwing an option out, it will be good to see what first-handers have to say on the subject!
      Thanks. They are measured in decimals and there are no images in the emails. One for the ages ...
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      • Profile picture of the author Dani78
        Hey David,

        you don't need to put an image yourself,
        they usually use a 1x1 image pixel that's
        invisible to track opens.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sarevok
    This is why I cringe when I see people suggesting to "delete" those who don't open mail.

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  • Profile picture of the author JCorp
    Yup, those stats aren't entirely accurate... this is why I teach to not really pay attention to those stats in the grand scheme of things (unless if you're selling solos, then CLICKS need to be paid attention to)...

    So depending on your list size, you may or may not see much open rates, if any at all, especially if your list size is small.
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  • Profile picture of the author Coby
    You know how sometimes you get an email and it says "enable images" at the top...

    Then you click "enable images" but the email still looks exactly the same?

    Well, that's what is going on here. Autoresponders will automatically insert a 1x1 tracking pixel into all html emails in order to track the open rate.

    However, the issue is that it is not that accurate. If folks are using a "plain text" email client like "Squirrel Mail" then they will see the "plain text" version and thus will not trigger the tracking pixel (plain text emails don't contain a tracking pixel).

    So, what is happening is that folks are either not enabling images to trigger the tracking pixel or they are reading the emails in a plain text email client. However, the most likely situation is a combination of the two.

    Hope this helps.

    Cheers,
    Coby
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