You have a good inflow of visitors. You are collecting lead information via landing pages, social media surveys and contests, and gated content. Your leads are properly segmented based on their website and app behavior. You know our dynamic contact list segmentation always ensures that your leads are bucketed based on demographics like age, location, etc., website behavior and engagement, buyer’s stage, and events. This means you can seamlessly send targeted and personalized emails. You schedule an automated drip campaign series based on your lead’s interest. Still, your email open rate was low. WHY?
Now you are confused because you don’t know what went wrong. Maybe we can again begin from the start. Let’s get our concepts cleared first.
What is an Email Open Rate?
The calculation goes like this –
The general perception is that the industry average email open rate is the number of people who open your emails. Unfortunately, this is not the case. An email open rate is defined as the ratio of the total number of unique people who opened the email content and the total number of delivered emails.
Suppose a total of 100 emails were sent. Out of those, 20 emails bounced, which means a total of 80 emails were delivered. Out of the 80 delivered emails, 20 emails were opened. That means the average email open rate will be 25%.
The calculation goes specifically this way –
Email Open Rate = Unique Open Emails / (Total Number of Emails Sent – Total Number of Bounced Emails)
25% = 20 / (100 – 20)
Emails that are not delivered cannot be opened. So, this number is not included in the calculation of the industry average email open rates.
Tracking of the Email Open Rates
It is important to understand that the tracking of the Email Open Rates is not a perfect science. To track whether an email has been opened or not, a small one-by-one-pixel graphics (transparent, invisible picture), also known as a tracking pixel, is inserted into the email being sent. Only when the graphics (image) is loaded (after getting downloaded from the server), the email is marked as the opens. If you don’t want to use tracking pixels to discover whether someone has opened your email, then you can do it by requesting a return receipt through your email service.
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Since the good average email open rates relies on the download of a graphic image, it isn’t 100% accurate. There can be multiple issues with the tracking mechanism mentioned above:
- Many internet service providers (ISPs), as well as users, never load the graphics in an email. Without the graphics being loaded, even an opened email will not be marked as an open email.
- Many users prefer to receive their emails in text format only. In this case, also, the graphics are never loaded, and although opened, the email will not be marked as an opened email.
- Users who use mobile, tablets, or other such devices to read their emails, read-only the text version of the email. As such, the graphics never get a chance to be loaded in the email, and although the email is opened and read, it is not marked as an opened email.
- Non-HTML (text) emails are not tracked at all (as the graphics are not loaded at all in such emails). As such, even if the email is opened, it will not be marked as an opened email. Some email reading applications do not allow open emails to be reported. Some email reading applications let the recipient choose whether to allow open emails tracking as a personal setting.
Because of the reasons mentioned above, it is likely that the actual average email open rates are on the higher side than the reported rate.
This feels pretty good for Marketer?
If you have a low email marketing benchmarks, then, there could be many reasons for a low email open rate. You need to check the email open rates against the benchmark for your particular industry. The email marketing benchmarks by industry varies based on the type of industry, the geographic location, type of ISPs (Internet Service Providers), etc.
Reasons Why Your Emails Have a Low Email Open Rates
If you are sending emails for a while, and the open rate has declined initially and subsequently plateaued, that trend is healthy. But in case your open rates have been way below the benchmark and are continuously falling, there might be some inherent issues with your campaigns.
1. Subject Lines are not Effective
Subject lines are the gatekeepers to your emails and the first thing that the recipient sees in their inbox. A good subject line can dramatically increase the likelihood that your email will be opened. On the other hand, a boring subject line can significantly decrease your email open rates benchmarks as it implies to the readers that your email is not worth opening leading to low click rates and may lead to increasing unsubscribe rate.
A good email subject line has two components: firstly, it tells the recipient what the email contents are and secondly, it tells the recipient that the email is worth opening. The subject line should stand out and spark interest to the recipients, without looking as a spam. It should be short, clear, concise and to the point. Try A/B testing your subject lines and other elements of your email performance. But alert! Don’t make these errors while doing an A/B test.
2. You used too many Buzz Words
Certain keywords (buzzwords) negatively affect the email open rates and thus, should be prevented altogether. Some examples are “free”, “help”, “reminder”, “daily”, “percentage off”, etc.
3. Your email isn’t personalized
Adding the recipient’s name gives a personal touch to the email and the email does not look automatically generated. Adding recipients’ past trends and buying habits in the subject line add the personal touch.
Statistics show that personalized emails sent are 22.2% more likely to be opened.
4. Lack of Incentive for Your Recipient
You should give some incentive to the recipients to open the email. Add some urgency to the subject line, offer them something they value or something that are relevant to them so that they are incentivized enough to open the email.
5. You did not test enough
Although there are general rules, still, the best way to know what resonates with your recipients is to test and then, test some more. Try multiple subject lines, check the statistics as to which ones have a higher open rate, and analyze what you did differently with the subject line that actually clicked with the recipients. No audience is the same. So, test what works well with your audience.
6. No Sense of Urgency
Using the words such as “this weekend”, “limited offer”, “first come, first serve”, etc. creates a need for a sense of urgency in the recipients and thus it becomes likely that the email will be opened.
7. Negative Connotation can spoil your campaign
A negative Connotation decreases the probability that the recipient would open the email. Avoid using negative connotations as much as possible so that the average open rates graph trends northwards.
8. You weren’t specific
Use data from the recipient’s interests, past trends, and buying history. Use this information to make the subject line highly accurate and relevant to the recipients.
9. You used aggressive words
Using words in capitals, exclamation marks, etc. makes the subject line look aggressive, unfriendly and even spammy. Avoid using offensive subject lines. Avoid looking aggressive.
10. Inefficient Content
If on receiving your emails, their expectations are not satisfied, they will stop opening your emails next time they receive them. If subscribers are not enjoying your content, they will stop reading your emails.
Focus on the content of the emails such that it would help in solving the recipient’s problem.
11. Efficient but Irrelevant Content
Sometimes, it might so happen that the content is practical and exciting, but it is not relevant to the recipient. This might happen if you have different types of subscribers in your email list.
Try sending targeted emails to a smaller set of subscribers in your email list who will be more interested in the contents of your .
12. You sent emails too frequently
With very few exceptions (high-value content), the greater the volume of email sent to an individual, the lesser number of times they will open the email. In general, the more a number of emails, the lower the level of engagement with the subscribers for an email campaign.
When email contacts subscribe, make sure their expectations specific as to how frequently they would expect your emails. However If you can ask the subscribers how often they got what many want to hear from you, nothing can make prove to be better than that. Do not send them email on daily basis until required.
13. Unsegmented Email List
If you send generic emails to reach all the subscribers on your email list, you will not be able to make engagement with your subscribers and however the industry average open rates will be on the lower side as the email content will not be relevant to most of the subscribers. Sending targeted emails to specific subscribers, segmented on location, interests, buying history, latest trends, recent activities, age, language, gender, etc. will engage them thoroughly and would increase the email open rates as the emails will be relevant to them.
The aim is to send targeted quality emails to segmented subscribers so that the content of the emails are more relevant to them, as against online email blasts which lack relevance for the subscribers.
Statistics shows that segmented campaigns perform 14.4% better in terms of average open rates as against not segmented campaigns.
14. Your conacts may no longer be interested in your emails
There might so happen that initially, the subscribers were interested in your emails, but in due course of time, due to a change in their lifestyle, job changes, changes in priorities, they have become less interested in your emails.
In such situations, the subscribers will not be interested or willing to open your emails. Moreover, its subscribers will be more likely to mark your email as spam as opposed to just unsubscribing. Inactive emails will tend to bring your open rate email marketing metrics performance down.
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Unclean and old email lists will contribute to low open rates, bounces, spam flags and can lead to marking of your emails as spam.
15. Email got stuck in the spam filter, Test your email newsletter template and find any issue from here.
If your email gets delivered in the customer spam folder, rather than the inbox, the customer will not even get a chance to open the email. There are multiple reasons why an email gets filtered into the spam folder of the high end contact. Its some of the most frequent reasons have been enumerated below.
Test your email newsletter template article and find any issue from mail tester.
16. You used keywords that triggered Spam alerts
Its certain keywords in the subject line trigger the email as spam. Avoiding such words will land the emails in the recipient’s inbox, increasing the probability for the recipients to open them. Avoid using keywords like “Free”, both in the subject line and the email body. Instead, use words like “complimentary”, “at no charge”, etc. Some of the spam triggering keywords are as mentioned below:
Guarantee, 100% free, FREE, ALL CAPS, $$$, !!! or excess of any symbol, Attention!, Act Now!, Re:, FWD:, T e x t w I t h g a p s.
17. You sounded deceptive in your email
Do not use words like “Re:” or “Fwd:” in your subject line. These used to be a contact good hack a few years back, but, not now!
18. A complicated email body format
Do not cram too much information into the email body or use complicated email layout that might impact email rendering in devices.
19. Optimum Text to Image Ratio – messed up!
Do not cram images in the email body. Maintain the ideal 60-40 text to image ratio. Avoid having a single large image in the email body. Have as much text as possible, instead of pictures.
Source: themeforest.net
20. Too many Links
Avoid cramming too many links in the email body. Prefer text instead of links.
21. Used Links from Non-Credible Websites
Use links from credible websites. A link from a non-credible website may trigger email as spam. Also copyrights resevered of all 2023.
22. Forgot to include Date and Time in Emails
Including a date and a time in your emails shows that your emails are recent. This can lead to more email open rates.
23. Too many Attachments in Emails
Avoid attaching files or images in emails. This helps in avoiding the spam trigger.
24. Grammatical Errors or Spelling Mistakes
Casual grammatical errors and spelling mistakes do not create a good impression to the recipients. Moreover, they can trigger spam filters too. Try to avoid them as much as possible. Use Grammarly if you have to.
25. Not Include Physical Mailing Address in Email
Adding a physical mailing address want to give credibility to the email, and thus, there are fewer chances of such emails triggering spam filters.
26. Relying on Purchased Email List
Subscribers from an updated purchased email list have not given their authorization to receive emails from you. As such, they would unsubscribe from your emails and may also opt to report your emails as spam which can deteriorate your . Moreover, a updated purchased email list might be stale with lots of inactive users.
27. Using “test” in the Subject Line
Using “test” anywhere in your subject line renders your emails casual. The recipients will not be prone to open such emails.
28. Frequent change in the “from” name
Using a constant “from” name lends credibility to your emails and helps your subscribers want to remember and recognize your emails. Frequent changes in the “from” name will lose that credibility factor from the recipient and the spam filter perspective.
29. Did not request subscribers to add your email address to their safe List
Request your subscribers to add your email address in their address book or in their safe list so as to avoid the spam trigger and to get the graphics tracker download easily for better traceability of the open emails.
30. Couldn’t keep Subscribers Engaged
Keep subscribers engaged through frequent product review requests, order follow-ups, and general feedback requests, so that they remember you, are interested in you and keep opening your emails.
31.“Unsubscribe” Button was hard to find
Provide easily accessible “unsubscribe” button to the subscribers wants to opt of your emails. This will help clean your email list of uninterested subscribers, satisfies the CAN-SPAM act and lends credibility to your emails and helps avoid spam filters.
32. Did not filter Bounced Email Addresses
Removing email campaigns which have bounced multiple times helps in cleaning your email list, increase the email open rates as well as enhance your reputation as an email sender with lower bounce rates.
33. Used Links having One Giant Image
Avoid creating links which contain one single giant image or video. This can trigger a spam filter. Avoid images as much as possible.
34. Used Addresses as “noreply@company.com”
Try to avoid “reply to” email addresses such as “noreply@company.com”. Use a genuine “reply to” email address in all your emails so that recipients can interact with you in case they feel so. Moreover, the presence of a genuine “reply to” email address in your emails lends credibility to your campaign and help your emails avoid spam triggers. The company name should be specified along with subject lines.
35. Did not respect “unsubscribe” requests
Make sure that the “unsubscribe” option works for up to 30 days from the day the email is sent and fulfil all the “unsubscribe” requests. This enhances your credibility and satisfies the CAN-SPAM act. Also keep a track of your unsubscribe rate.
36. Did not use a recognized/genuine “from” name
Use a “from” name which your recipients recognize quickly. This will help them open your emails and will thus increase your average open rates.
37. Avoided Double opt-in
Double opt-in means that the subscriber will confirm that they want to receive emails from you. You would not like to send emails to audiences who are not interested in your emails. This will lower your email open rates, increase the chances of your emails being reported as spam as well as reduce your reputation as an email sender thus reducing the deliverability of your emails.
38. Forgot to reference your Domain in Emails via SPF
SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is a standard for email authentication. It compares the sender’s actual IP Address to a list of IP Addresses authorized to send emails from that domain. The company name and subject lines plays a key role. If you reference your domain in your emails via SPF, there will be more probability that the emails will be able to avoid the Spam folder and make it to the inbox of the recipient, increasing the open rates.
39. Stale List of Subscribers wasn’t cleaned
If your subscriber’s list is a little old, it is time to clean up the inactive or outdated emails. Average open rates tend to decline gradually, over the years as people tend to switch jobs, their interests and lifestyle changes, etc. You need to weed out such emails so that the inactive recipients do not bring your industry average open rates down.
40. Not Attracting New Subscribers
If you are not attracting new subscribers regularly, the issue in the previous point is enhanced. With time, the old subscribers will become inactive or outdated, and the email open rates will go southwards. Gaining new subscribers takes continual effort.
41. Tracking Issues
The email client generally blocks the images by default. Also, the email clients in applications like mobile or tablet only receive the text version of the email. The plain-text version of the email does not support the tracking image download capabilities. The recipients may choose the “not to download image” option.
Always request your subscribers to add your email marketing campaigns in their “address book” or in their “safe sender” list so that the graphic image can be downloaded automatically. Also, use “jpeg” images instead of “png” images as “png” images and are not compatible with many email applications.
42. Mobile Optimization
As per the statistics, 48% of emails are being checked on a device (mobile, smartphones, tablets, etc. ). Moreover, 69% of people checking emails on their mobile devices tend to delete emails that do not render well on their devices. If your emails are not looking good on the devices, the audience won’t bother to open them, and you will be missing on the average open rates.
Source: seopressor.com
Make sure that the email layout, design, and images look good on the device. Also, make sure that the images being used are compact and efficient so that it won’t take forever to load them on a device. Use “jpeg” images as much as possible as “png” images are not compatible in many devices.
Related: 30 E-Commerce Email Marketing Examples to take Note of
43. Time of Delivery
The time of delivery of the email can influence how many people open your email clicks and email click-through rate and thus can impact the average open rates. If you send your emails on a weekend, people are less likely to open them, at least not right away. On a Monday morning, people take time to catch up from the weekends. Also, after business hours, people are less likely to open their emails that have subject lines. So the best bet to send your emails is on a Tuesday after 12 pm.
As per the statistics available, the best day to send an email in order to get the best email open rates is on a Tuesday after 12 pm.
Moreover, 23% of all email opens occur during the first hour of delivery. After 24 hours of delivery, the chances of opening an email drop below 1%. Mondays, Fridays, and weekends are not the best days to send emails.
44. Seasonal Factors
Seasonal factors too can have an effect on your email open rates. In the last updated periods when the email volumes are high (like festivals, celebrations, important events), people might get choosy as to what to open in their crowded email inbox. As such, the email open rates might deteriorate. In contrast, when the email volumes are too small (periods like the long holiday season, weekends), people do not bother to check their emails. In this case, too, the email open rates go down.
45. Did not enhance your Sender Score:
If you have a low sender score, this means that your reputation is not good in the ISP domains. A small score sender can be marked as a spammer, and their email will get trapped in the spam folder rather than the inbox. As such, there will be no chance for your emails to be read or even opened.
You can increase your reputation and can improve your sender score by adding credibility to your emails. An authenticated domain name, lower bounce rates, presence of an opt-out link, genuine content, credible links, engaged subscribers, lower reported emails, real and authenticated “reply to” email address, presence of a valid physical postal address adds credibility to your emails and enhance your sender score and reputation as an email sender.
46. Did not opt for Automatically-Triggered Emails
Automatically triggered email are those emails which are triggered by some events or actions taken by the recipient. These emails can be triggered by events or actions such as:
- A purchase made
- A download was done
- A recipient joining a community (a welcome email)
- A recipient becoming inactive (a reactivation email)
- A recipient leaving their cart with an item in it (a purchase email)
Statistics shows that these types of automatically triggered emails have a 71% higher email open rates and 102% high click rates than non-triggered emails.
Triggered emails are not only segmented but are also sent at a time when the recipient is interested in such types of emails, making them more of an engagement to the recipient.
47. Stopped managing your email List:
An email list that is not often maintained and managed suffer from lower email open rates, higher inactive users and lower subscriber engagement. When the copy of email list contains wrong email campaigns and inactive subscribers, email open rates will fall and bounce rates would increase. This can lead to the below mentioned two results:
- Subscribers receiving emails which are not relevant to them
- ISPs not delivering your emails because of reputation loss due to higher bounce rates
ISPs look into multiple factors while your emails are delivered.
- Whom you are sending the email workflow
- How frequently your emails are delivered
- The bounce rate of your emails
- The number of complaints about your emails
- Your email open rates
- Your email click rate
All these factors determine your reputation with your ISPs and affect whether your emails will be delivered to the recipient’s inbox or spam folder if it is delivered at all.
48. Dealing with Separate Tab for Promotional Emails:
Gmail has introduced a new feature that filters promotional emails into a distinct separate tab. The three tabs are titled “Primary”, “Social” and “Promotional” tabs. Gmail tries to filter the emails and put them into the third tab, the “Promotional” tab. This separates the promotional B2B marketing emails workflow from reaching the “Primary” tab, the inbox which the recipient generally checks.
The unique feature of this new tab is that this tab is only visible in the browser view. It is not visible in mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, and mobiles. Moreover, if a person is checking his or her promotional tab, that means they are genuinely interested in special offers and B2B marketing messages and are more receptive to such emails.
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Now you know where you were going wrong. So buckle up now. summary is test your email templates, content, subject line, and element placement before you send your emails. Organise your email lists and set of behaviour-based triggers for a seamless email campaign. Track your emails and lead nurturing to understanding where your leads are dropping off. Yes, it’s a lot of work but will pay off for you. Also, a tip: Resort to multi-channel marketing to keep your leads engaged, aware and looking forward to your next email campaign.
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⭐ What is an Email Open Rate?
Email open rate is the measure to understand the percentage of subscribers who open the email campaigns.
⭐ How to Track Email Open Rates?
Marketers can monitor open inbox rates with the help of tracking pixel. They will receive a pop-up notification once subscribers open the email and determine the statistics of open and click-through rates.
⭐ Why emails have low open rates?
Reasons for low email open rate:
a) Incorrect delivery time
b) Unattractive subject line
c) Using negative connotations and aggressive words
d) Lack of using private domain for sending emails
⭐ Is click through rate same as click to open rate?
Click through rates (CTR) and click to open rates (CTOR) can both indicate the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign. While CTR tells you how many people clicked on a link in your email, CTOR tells you how many people opened your email and then clicked through to an associated landing page.
⭐ Does click-through rate matter?
The click-through rate (CTR) on emails is a key metric used to determine the effectiveness of an email campaign. It can be thought of as an alternative to measuring open rates, which only speaks to how many people looked at the contents of your email, not what they did after that. The click-through rate measures how often someone clicks on a link in your email.
⭐ What is a good B2B click to open rate?
A click-to-open rate means that a recipient opened an email message from a sender. In the world of B2B marketing, click-to-open rates are typically measured in emails per 100 or emails per 1000 sent. Based on this metric, marketers can determine whether they should continue using a particular channel for reaching out to target audiences or if they should shift their focus elsewhere.
⭐ Is a 10% open rate good?
A 10% open rate is great for a lot of businesses. But, it might not be as good as you think. It’s important to look at the quality of your leads and analyze all aspects before deciding if it is a positive or negative response.
⭐ What is a normal open rate?
Open rates are one of the most commonly used metrics in email marketing. It’s good to know what a normal open rate is for your industry, but it doesn’t tell you much about how an individual campaign is doing. That’s why it’s important to set goals and monitor your data on a per-campaign basis rather than using broad industry benchmarks.
⭐ Is CTR a good metric?
The number of click-throughs is not always an accurate reflection of how many people are opening your message. If you’re using email to build relationships with customers, then the real metric you should care about is the open rate. Open rates show you how engaged your subscribers are with your emails because it shows that they’ve taken the time to read what’s in them.
⭐ What subject lines get the most opens?
The most effective subject lines are short and to the point. You have a limited amount of space to capture attention, so you need to grab the reader’s interest quickly. The best subject lines also make use of your brand name, which is particularly useful if people aren’t familiar with your company or product.
In many cases, you can create a really good subject line by simply including the name of your business or product in brackets after an intriguing statement or question.
21 Comments
Super useful post!
Useful Information for email marketers
Hi there,
Great blog post! Open rates are very important to email marketers, even I suffer the same problem. Thanks for sharing, I will try to follow these ideas to overcome email open rate problem.
Hey, thanks for such a useful information. The reasons you have mentioned are very authentic. I work in a reputed organization, as a content marketer it’s my responsibility to get good conversions which are not always possible, but if I am updated with the reasons and measures I need to take then it would be great. So, I am glad you shared these points.
Hey Ankit thanks for sharing the article, This write-up is very interesting for the people to understand the concept of low email open rate. The article is a combination of two important elements. At first, it highlights how to calculate low open rate and then about the reasons of low open rate. It is a well-defined write up which has broadly defined every point for the readers. The blog has got 49 points as solid reasons for the low open rate. It is indeed an interesting read.
Thank you Evelyn ! Glad you liked it !
Absolutely! Emails that are not delivered can not be open. It is rather philosophical! But your article dispels a lot of myths about email open rate and list good 49 factors that can possibly lead to a low email open rate.
Some fabulous advice I found in your article was not to use deceptive subject lines such as “Re:” or “Fwd” and of course a list of other things not to be done lest our email reaches the customer’s spam. Extremely useful article on a very popular subject.
The email open rate is the most important aspect. If one is having a low email open rate, then it would be catastrophic for one’s email marketing growth. With this platform, success is certain and accountable. Deliverability is ensured.
Normally many people have a misconception about the term ‘email open rate’. It is practically true that the email open rate is more than the reported rate. These ideas you shared will help me to overcome the difficulty of less email open rate. Good read!
Your blog post has presented lots of high-quality guidance! I appreciate all that you have shared. Also I think sometimes you just have to chill and send emails a little less often.
Sometimes the open rates shown in the “Reports” tab will always be lower than in reality because we can’t track emails that block images. So we must always include a text version as an alternative in case they can’t receive HTML messages. Also we must use JPEG image files instead of PNGs can help to some extent.
There might be a few circumstances under which we will not be able to track an open for the emails that we sent. Since we insert a tiny image into the body of the email, if the email client is blocking images by default then we might not get an actual count.
You cleared quite a few misconceptions I had. Irrespective of having an amazing product and excellent content these are really great tips to follow.
If you want to make your marketing campaign successful, then it is quintessential to understand the concept of different email templates, subject lines, and effective element placement to launch it successfully. This article is a great resource for this.
What a fantastic article, if these tips are adequately implemented the email delivery can be quickly increased at a high rate.
Great post! Great work Ankit! since the open rate is very vital for any email marketer, any marketer will find it interesting to follow these ideas.
Thanks a lot for sharing such a great article. For an email marketer, open rates matter a most. Thanks for sharing, I will follow to improve my business email open rates.
Great article! If a company doesn’t have the time or skills to do their own email marketing, then this is a great guide to get started!
Great work Ankit! Open rate is an essential aspect for any marketer to follow.
Good job Ankit. This post is quite informative and will help many email marketers improve their email open rates.
It’s easy to see why your email campaign might have lower rates. But why is the email conversion rate low on your website? You might think it’s because people aren’t visiting your site that often, but that’s not the case. One should magnify this aspect to improve their conversions.