emailrules.today
Stop 8 of 8Week oneThe next morning

Open rate

Estimated share of emails “opened” — badly distorted by Apple Mail Privacy Protection and other auto-loads.

Say it out loud

“The number everyone still reports and almost nobody should be deciding anything with.”

Open rate counts a tracking pixel loading. Since privacy features began loading images automatically, that event no longer maps onto a person reading anything. It retains some value as a relative signal between two sends on the same audience in the same week; it has almost none as an absolute number.

The arithmeticWhat the number is made of nowExample numbers
Reported opens 66,740
Apple prefetch, no human ~34,700

Fired on delivery. Nobody read anything.

Images blocked, human read it not counted

The error runs in both directions, which is why it cannot be corrected.

Genuine, counted ~32,000
Use instead:
clicks · replies · revenue against a holdout

The last one is the only measure that survives contact with a finance team.

Nobody's

Nothing to action — it changes a number or a risk you report.

What goes wrong

Comparing this quarter's open rate to a benchmark published before September 2021, or to another brand with a different Apple share. Both comparisons are arithmetic on incompatible units.

The dated rules behind this

A definition is not a citation. These are the pages with the primary source, the date it was published, and what to do about it.

See also

Where this sits

Stop 8, it comes back as numbers. The reactions become a dashboard, and the dashboard is lying to you a little.

← BeforeOpt-outNext →Sunset / sunsetting

FAQ

Awkward questions

Who is this actually for?

People who ship email and are too busy to re-read every PDF: week-one marketers, lifecycle/CRM, deliverability, multi-country ops, DTC brands, agencies — on Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Braze, HubSpot, SFMC, or something else. Pick your tool and geos so product-specific pages only appear when they match. EU and UK are first-class filters. Not for people who sell tools about email and need a fake score to demo.

Why only ~40 rules? Isn’t that… thin?

On purpose. A wall of 400 undated “best practices” is how you look busy and still get burned. Every page needs a primary source we actually read. Thin and checkable beats fat and folklore. Europe, bulk inbox rules, measurement honesty, and protocol topics like BIMI/DMARC policy are on the shelf when we can cite them — not every Member State and not every vendor myth. Coverage map lists what we still refuse to invent.

Is this legal advice?

No. If it were, you’d have a billable hour and a longer PDF. This is a dated operator reference written by an email geek. Confirm anything high-stakes with counsel who knows your facts. Same for “will this make me compliant?” — no tool does that. Lawyers and judges do. We say what the sources say and what to do first on Monday.

Why no trust score out of 100?

Because we refuse to invent a number you can’t audit. Fake scores sell seed tests and panic. You get findings, dates, and links. If that feels less exciting than a red dial, good — you’re not the red-dial customer.

Why should I trust you more than my ESP’s blog?

ESPs sell seats. Seed-score vendors sell fear. AI invents citations when nobody watches. We sell nothing today — no pixels, no placement scores, no affiliate — so we can say when a tool is the problem. A human verifies, dates, and corrects in public. Tools may help draft; they do not ship unsourced claims. Check the primary links. Fail that test and leave.

Do I need an account?

No. Filters live in this browser and the URL. Share the link. That’s it. Accounts come later only if they earn it — not so we can nurture you about email.

I’m an agency. Where’s multi-client mode?

We tried a client-name CRM on the setup card. It made the product feel like work before it felt useful. Role filters + copy link + one-page brief (optional PDF title) is enough for now. Complexity comes back when the free shelf is habit, not before.

Is the quiet changelog a bug?

No. Quiet means nothing material moved. We don’t invent urgency so the homepage looks “alive.” Sticky risks still show what usually needs a person when the market is still.