Will inboxes stop using open rates?

Here's a misconception that trips up a lot of senders: open rates were never something mailbox providers used to filter your emails. That was always a marketer metric, not a provider metric.

Mailbox providers like Gmail and Outlook have always had their own view of what their users do. They can see whether someone reads a message, how quickly they delete it, whether they move it to a folder, whether they hit the spam button, or whether they never touch it at all. They don't need your tracking pixel for any of that. It's their platform.

What Apple Mail Privacy Protection changed is your visibility, not theirs. When Apple prefetches tracking pixels, your ESP records a false open. Apple still knows exactly what that user did. The signal just got hidden from you, not from the inbox.

So what should you actually watch? Focus on the signals you can track that also reflect genuine intent. Clicks show someone wanted to act on your email. Replies show someone wanted to talk. Conversions show real value was delivered. Complaint rates show you've pushed too far. And unsubscribe rates, while imperfect, tell you something about fit.

The providers are watching engagement signals on their side that you'll never see directly. Your job is to send emails people actually want, and trust that the downstream behavior (fewer spam reports, more clicks, lower delete rates) follows. That's what protects your sender reputation over time.

Not sure whether your current engagement signals are healthy? Our SOS hotline is free, and we can walk you through what to look at.