Email Metrics & Deliverability
Open rate, click rate and deliverability tell you if your emails are landing, getting read, and working.
What you will learn
- Define open rate, click rate and deliverability
- Calculate open rate and click rate step by step
- Know what good numbers look like and how to improve them
How do you know if email is working?
You cannot improve what you do not measure. Three simple numbers tell you how your emails are doing: deliverability (did it arrive?), open rate (did they open it?), and click rate (did they act on it?).
Open rate — did they open it?
Open rate is the share of delivered emails that were opened. The formula is simple:
Open rate = (emails opened / emails delivered) × 100
Example:
You delivered 1,000 emails. 250 people opened them.
Open rate = (250 / 1000) × 100 = 25%Note: A 25% open rate means 1 in 4 people opened your email. The subject line is what mostly drives this number — a better subject line lifts your open rate.
Click rate — did they act?
Click rate — also called CTR (click-through rate) — is the share of delivered emails where someone clicked a link (like your call-to-action button). This shows if your message and offer actually worked. You will see the term “CTR” everywhere in marketing tools, so it is worth knowing.
Click rate (CTR) = (clicks / emails delivered) × 100
Example:
Of the 1,000 delivered emails, 30 people clicked your link.
CTR = (30 / 1000) × 100 = 3%Note: A 3% click rate means 30 of every 1,000 readers clicked your call-to-action. If the open rate is high but clicks are low, the email got opened but the offer or CTA did not convince people.
One campaign, all three numbers together
In real life you read all three numbers side by side. Here is one bakery campaign with every metric worked out, so you can see how they connect:
| What happened | Number | Metric | Calculation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Emails sent | 1,050 | — | the starting list |
| Emails delivered | 1,000 | Deliverability | (1,000 / 1,050) × 100 = 95% |
| Emails opened | 300 | Open rate | (300 / 1,000) × 100 = 30% |
| Links clicked | 40 | Click rate (CTR) | (40 / 1,000) × 100 = 4% |
Note: Read top to bottom, the numbers tell a story: 95% of emails arrived, 30% of those were opened, and 4% led to a click. If any one number is weak, you know exactly where to improve — the subject line (opens) or the offer and CTA (clicks).
How to measure your own campaign, step by step
After you send a real campaign, your email tool shows you these raw numbers. Here is how to turn them into the three metrics, in order:
- Send your campaign and wait a day or two for people to open and click.
- Find three numbers in your tool: how many were delivered, opened, and clicked.
- Calculate deliverability = (delivered / sent) × 100 — did it reach inboxes?
- Calculate open rate = (opened / delivered) × 100 — did the subject line work?
- Calculate click rate (CTR) = (clicks / delivered) × 100 — did the offer and CTA work?
- Compare each number to the healthy ranges below, then fix the weakest one first.
Note: Notice the order matters: you always divide opens and clicks by delivered (not sent), because you can only expect a reply from emails that actually arrived. Work through these six steps after every send and you will always know what to improve next.
Deliverability — did it even arrive?
Deliverability is whether your email reaches the inbox at all, instead of bouncing or landing in spam. If deliverability is poor, nothing else matters — your great email is never seen.
| Metric | A rough “healthy” range | Mostly improved by |
|---|---|---|
| Open rate | Around 20–35% | Better subject lines |
| Click rate | Around 2–5% | A clearer offer and CTA |
| Deliverability | Above 95% inbox | A clean, permission-based list |
Tip: To protect deliverability, keep your list clean: only email people who opted in, and remove addresses that never open. A small, engaged list lands in inboxes far better than a big, stale one.
Watch out: Buying lists or emailing people who never opted in wrecks deliverability. Too many spam complaints and email providers start sending all your emails to spam — even to people who do want them.
Q. You delivered 2,000 emails and 100 people clicked your link. What is the click rate?
✍️ Practice
- You delivered 800 emails and 200 were opened. Calculate the open rate step by step.
- If a campaign has a high open rate but a very low click rate, write down what you would fix and why.
🏠 Homework
- Make a small table for an imaginary campaign: delivered, opened, clicked. Then calculate both the open rate and the click rate.