So does the use of “Bonded Spammer” (now “Sender Score Certified”). Ironport really blew that one. A few years ago, Ironport was selling both spam-filtering appliances and rackmount spamming engines. Their security customers were so angry that Ironport had to exit the spam engine business.

The focus should be on other metrics that are more meaningful. Click-through rates and conversions are more meaningful and accurate. Inbox delivery rates are a critical measure, as are complaint rates and unknown user rates. These numbers are extremely relevant to the health and success of your email programs. Whether someone complains about receiving a specific email message from you (by hitting the ‘spam’ button) can tell you a great deal, and give you priceless data to improve your future subscriber experience.

However, tracking open rates isn’t a dead art just yet. Used as a relative measure, comparing one campaign to the next, the data is still useful. There is good news yet, that it is still possible to increase open rates, by joining a whitelist program like Sender Score Certified or Goodmail, which enable images and links by default at key ISPs. This will increase your open rates, because the tracking images will be ‘displayed’. Additionally, you can still encourage your subscribers to add you to their address book, or safe senders list, depending on the email reader they use. This will enable your images to be displayed despite the default setting, allowing you to count these opens.