5 min read
Email Marketing Benchmarks : Why Open Rate Lies
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EMAIL MARKETING BENCHMARKS ARE LYING TO YOU : WHAT ACTUALLY MATTERS IN 2026
Every year, a dozen platforms publish the same email benchmark report - here's the average open rate, here's the average click rate, here's how you stack up. Marketers screenshot the numbers, compare their open rate to the industry average and feel good or bad accordingly.
Here's the uncomfortable truth for 2026. Your open rate is one of the least trustworthy numbers in your entire marketing stack and building strategy around it is a great way to optimize something that doesn't move revenue. Let me explain why — and what to measure instead.