For years, open rates have been the go-to metric for legal marketing professionals measuring the success of their email campaigns, both internally and externally. A high open rate felt like proof that your content was landing. 

But the truth is that open rates have become increasingly unreliable, and making decisions based on them may be doing more harm than good.

The problem with open rates

Email opens are tracked using tracking pixels, tiny images embedded in email content that register a "load" when the email is opened. Sounds straightforward, but the reality is far messier.

Many email clients now block image loading by default, meaning recipients can read an email without it ever registering as "opened." At the same time, Apple's iOS 15 update automatically pre-loads all emails on Apple devices, artificially inflating open rates. Add to this the rise of preview panes that register false positives, and you have a metric that can simultaneously undercount and overcount, often at the same time.

For legal marketers trying to demonstrate ROI, report on campaign performance, or make decisions about content strategy, that's a serious problem.

What should you focus on instead?

The good news is that there are far more meaningful signals available. Click-through rates, conversion rates, and engagement with specific content pieces offer a much more comprehensive view of performance than open rates ever could. These metrics tell you not just whether someone glanced at a subject line, but whether they actually engaged with your content and took action.

For law firms using thought leadership as a business development tool, this distinction matters enormously. A contact who clicks through to read a full article or downloads a report is demonstrably more engaged than one who simply "opened" an email.

Personalisation and segmentation are also increasingly important. Tailoring content to individual recipients' preferences and behaviours drives higher genuine engagement. In legal marketing, where relationships are everything, sending the right insight to the right person at the right time is far more valuable than optimising for a metric that may not reflect reality.

The takeaway

Open rates aren't going away entirely, but they can no longer be trusted as a primary indicator of success. Whether you're sending external campaigns or internal communications, the firms that pull ahead will be those measuring genuine engagement, not just whether an email was technically "opened."