Why are my open and click numbers wrong?

Your open rate jumped overnight and sales did not move. Did people suddenly love you? Or did something else open your email?

How an open and a click get counted. An open is a tiny image loading. A click is a trip through a tracking link. Anything that loads the image or follows the link counts, as what counts as an open explains.

Opens nobody made. Apple Mail Privacy Protection loads every image through Apple's servers, read or not. How much it adds depends on how many of your readers use Apple Mail, as the MPP answer shows. Security gateways and spam-filter tests load images too.

Real opens that never count. Classic Outlook desktop blocked images until the reader clicked to download them, so someone can read every word and show zero opens. Gmail caches images after the first open, so a second open may not register.

Clicks nobody made. Corporate security scanners click links to check them, and some lists see clicks above delivered.

Real actions that never count as clicks. In an AMP email people can RSVP, fill a form or browse a carousel inside the email without clicking through, and AMP blocks outside tracking, so some real actions never show up as clicks.

How to read your numbers anyway. Split opens by mail client and provider. Look for machine rhythms, clicks seconds after delivery, the same IPs. Use your tool's bot filter if it has one.

What it means for your list. Don't suppress or re-engage on opens alone. Use clicks as the main signal.

Not sure whether your numbers are real? Our free SOS hotline will look at them with you.

Ask an AI. Copy this into ChatGPT, Claude or a similar assistant, fill in the blanks, and keep going with your own case:

My open rate is [number]% and my click rate is [number]% in [tool name]. About [number]% of my list uses Apple Mail and [number]% is business addresses. Which of these numbers can I trust, and how do I check for bot clicks in [tool name]?