Each router has its own calculation rules to determine the open rate. On Sarbacane Suite, the principle is relatively straightforward: an invisible tracking pixel is systematically and automatically added when you send a campaign.
Email open tracking relies on an invisible image (called tracking image) that loads when the message is opened. However, this method has certain limitations.
For example, certain email clients, such as Outlook Enterprise (desktop version), block image downloads by default. In this case, even if the recipient reads the email, the open cannot be detected unless they authorize image downloads or click on a link contained in the message.
Example:
Sophie opens your email in Outlook Enterprise, but images are blocked: her open is not detected.
She then clicks on the "Discover the offer" button: this click proves that she has indeed viewed the email, even if the open had not been recorded.
Similarly, if a recipient reads an email without an internet connection, the tracking image cannot load and the open will not be counted. This is why email open tracking can never be 100% reliable.
To provide a more representative estimate of the actual number of openers, Sarbacane applies two statistical corrections:
First adjustment: any person who clicked on a link is automatically considered to have opened the email, even if the opening was not detected.
Second adjustment: Sarbacane then applies a ratio based on detected openers and clickers to estimate the number of openings that could not be measured across the entire campaign.
The adjusted statistics are available in the Statistics tab of your campaign. However, behavioral tracking displays only the data actually detected, without applying these corrections.
