There is one missing item in this analysis: Outlook and other email clients that let you push the down arrow to see the next email and continue on. I think ope

There is one missing item in this analysis: Outlook and other email clients that let you push the down arrow to see the next email and continue on. I think open-rate is a terrible and meaningless metric unless there is a filter specifying @yahoo, @gmail, and other email clients that force you to explicitly open the emails. Even with this metric added in, there is still phone email clients and email settings where delete automatically sends the person to the next email. Even after filtering the data open-rate is still pretty meaningless compared to conversion. Conversion is very easy number to measure, but extremely difficult to increase. I'd rather have a 10% open-rate with 25% conversion than 50% open-rate with 1% conversion. A high conversion-rate allows the company to discover their customers and their behavior. Increasing conversion is an art-form. Increasing open-rate is difficult as well, but it should be secondary to increasing conversion.