How is it possible for a recipient to have a click but not an open in the tracking logs table?

The scenario where a recipient has a click but does not have an open in the tracking logs table can be explained specifically by the interaction that occurs with email clients regarding images. When a recipient opens an email, it generally triggers an open event that registers in the tracking logs, often contingent upon images being loaded.

In many cases, emails include images that are not automatically displayed due to settings in the recipient’s email client, such as blocking images for privacy reasons. If this happens, the email may still be considered "opened" from a user perspective, but without the images being displayed, the tracking system does not register an open event. However, if the recipient then clicks on a link within the email, this action will register as a click event, even though the tracking logs will not reflect that the email was actually opened because the corresponding image was never loaded.

This situation leads to the recipient's click being recorded while the open is not, thereby providing an example of how both events can occur independently.