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here is why..

Let’s honest. As email marketers, we have loved one number above all else for years: the open rate! We were proud of it, we reported it to clients, we optimised subject line after subject line to push that percentage up. And honestly? I get it. A high open rate feels good. It gives the impression that people actually want to read your email.

But that feeling has not been accurate for a while now. And it is time to let it go for good.

Apple started it

In September 2021, Apple introduced Mail Privacy Protection. I wrote this blog about it in 2021. From that moment on, Apple Mail started prefetching all tracking pixels in emails automatically, in the background, without the recipient ever opening anything. What did that mean? That every single email sent to an Apple Mail user was registered as “opened” even if that person never touched it.

This was a serious wake-up call. A significant portion of our audience was on iPhone, iPads or Macs. All those opens? Automatic. Not human. And it did not stop with Apple.

Because now Gmail is doing the same thing.

Gmail is following up

Over the past few weeks, senders around the world noticed something surprising: Gmail open rates dropping sharply, with no changes to the campaigns themselves. Same list. Same content. But opens: down.

Mailgun researched this and the conclusion is clear: Gmail adjusted how image activity is handled in a way that affects whether opens are recorded at all – without any change in how recipients actually interact with email.

The technical background: open tracking works via a tracking pixel, a small image that loads when a recipient opens a message. Gmail has long used proxy servers and automated image fetching for security and privacy reasons. Through that approach, a portion of opens was already being registered artificially. Now Gmail appears to be pulling that back even further.

The result: fewer recorded opens, without any drop in real engagement.

What this means for your data analysis

Open rates have always been an imperfect metric. What is changing now is not just the number – it is how much you can trust what that number actually represents.

Yet in practice many of us still see open rate sitting at the centre of every report. We congratulate each other on a 45% open rate, while a significant chunk of that comes from automated registrations. We optimise subject lines endlessly, based purely on a number that no longer reflects reality.

That is a waste of time. And it pulls your attention away from what actually matters.

The Click Rate tells you the true story

Want to know whether your email campaigns are actually working? Look at theclick-through rate (CTR).

For the travel industry, this is especially relevant. People click on a holiday offer because they are dreaming of a week away. They click on a pre-arrival email because they are genuinely preparing for their stay. They click on a preference link because they want more relevant content. Those are the signals that tell you whether your email strategy is landing.

If clicks and conversions stay stable while opens drop, that is a measurement shift – not a behaviour shift. And that is exactly what we are seeing with Gmail right now.

Practical Steps for Right Now

Stop reporting on open rate as your primary KPI Add click rate, CTR and conversion data as your main metrics. Open rate can stay as context, but it cannot be a steering mechanism anymore.
Do not segment based on inactivity through opens Suppressing Gmail addresses based on open inactivity risks removing engaged subscribers whose activity is simply no longer being captured the same way. Use clicks as the basis for your reactivation segments.
Optimise for relevance, not for opens A tempting subject line that drives an open but no click has zero commercial value. Make sure the content of your email is so relevant that clicking becomes the obvious next step.