E-mail marketing has become extremely popular, but many marketers still do not understand how to measure the success of open rates. The issues that arise include: what is a good open rate? What is the industry standard? Fortunately, these questions are relatively easy to answer.

Most e-mail marketing experts, myself included, agree that companies should not compare their own open rates to industry open rates, and that there is no set "good open rate." Instead, it is recommended that companies compare their results internally. The first e-mail blast should be used as the benchmark and from there, companies can compare subsequent e-mail blast open rates. One of the goals of e-mail marketing programs is to have continuous improvement with regard to open rates.

There are a couple of reasons why it is not good to compare your own results to the industry standard. One of the main issues is that there is no set way to calculate open rates and therefore, different e-mail service providers (ESPs) calculate open rates differently. If the "industry standard" open rate is calculated one way and your open rate is calculated another way, it is not an accurate comparison. Additionally, how the names on your list were acquired affects open rates. People use many different techniques to grow their contact lists (co-reg, viral marketing, website sign-up, etc.). Because of this, some lists have a more active following than others and thus will likely have a higher open rate.

Remember with e-mail open rates compare numbers internally and not to industry standards. Strive to improve the open rate with each e-mail blast sent out to achieve maximum success.