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Communication · Feature guide

Email Open Rates

What the open-rate number really measures, the four things that move it, and how to put video in an email without attaching one.

New · Updated Sep 21, 2026 · 3 min read
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1What the open rate tells you

ClientTether records how many times each email is opened, shows it on the contact’s history, and aggregates it into the Email Open Rate chart on the Dashboard — consolidated, or per action plan, so you can see which sequence people actually read.

Treat it as a trend, not a fact

Opens are counted by a tracking image. Mail clients that pre-load images register an open nobody made; clients that block images miss one that happened. Compare this week to last week rather than believing the absolute number.

2What actually moves it

  • The subject line. Personalise it with a token — a first name in the subject is the cheapest lift available.
  • Who it’s from. Email sent from the assigned user rather than the system reads as a person writing, not a platform. See Action Plan Settings.
  • Whether it arrives at all. Connect your own mailbox and, for Enterprise accounts, register your sending domain. An email in spam has an open rate of zero. See Connecting Your Email (SMTP & IMAP).
  • Frequency. Plans that email too often train people to ignore them, and the open rate falls across everything you send.

3Video in email

Video lifts engagement, but you cannot attach one — the files are far too large and providers reject them. The way it’s done:

  • Host the video somewhere it can be watched — your site, a video platform, or a ClientTether hosted page.
  • Take a thumbnail image from it, ideally with a play triangle drawn on.
  • Put the thumbnail in the email with the text editor and link the image to the video.
  • Keep the image in Files and use its public URL, so the email carries a link rather than a heavy attachment.