Your 92 percent open rate is not real
238 opens on 263 sends. The number was machine generated, and it was the most flattering figure on the screen.
The number
A client account displayed a 92 percent open rate on its list engagement screen. The underlying figures were 238 opens on 263 sends, account wide, over a month.
Why it is fiction
Apple Mail Privacy Protection pre fetches images, which registers as an open whether or not a human ever looked. On a small send base that distortion is enormous. As a working rule, any open rate above roughly 50 percent is telling you about machines.
What was worth quoting
On the same screen, a 5.31 percent click rate and a $359.43 average order value. Both survive scrutiny. Neither is as pleasant to put in a report.
The discipline
Before a number goes in a client report, ask what would have to be true for it to be wrong. Open rate fails that test in 2026. Click rate, revenue per recipient and order value pass it.
Real numbers from a live client account. Every result page carries the before, the after, and what the figure does not prove.