Email Marketing Glossary Terms: Read Rate

The read rate is the number of emails that are read when compared to the total number of emails delivered in an email marketing campaign. In an ideal world, every recipient will receive, read, and respond to the emails you send but the reality is that you will only usually receive a small number of conversions compared to the total number of recipients in an email list.

The read rate is an important indication of several factors. You should consider bounced or undelivered emails separately, although realistically these will crop as being unread because the recipient will not have the opportunity to read the email. The most advantageous measurement of a read rate is the number of emails read compared to the number of emails sent and received.

Sending marketing communication by email is an effective way of getting your marketing message read because even a business related email Inbox is considered a personal place. A read email indicates that your message has made it past the spam filter and that the subject line of an email has proven intriguing enough to lead to the recipient opening it.

If you suffer a low read rate with your emails then consider that either the subject line is uninviting, that your emails are being blocked before they are opened, or that your list members are not targeted enough when compared to the subject of your email. Members have not had the opportunity to actually read your email when they open it so the majority of your concentration should be on these factors.