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How is "open rate" measured?

Of course there's no foolproof way to tell if someone opened an email. You can do something like embed a link to an image with a unique URL for tracking, and hope people's email clients automatically follow such links. (Yours doesn't, mine doesn't, but your grandmother's might.)

Or hope you have engaging enough content that they click through one of your links. For example, email newsletters like HackerNewsletter are essentially just links, so there is a good chance a person will click through and be counted as an "open" (as well as a "click").

And the tracking pixel of course. Some clients auto-show images, some don't. Some people allow emails to show images, some people refuse. It's all just a "best guess".

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