Open Rate: How to improve it?

Open rate is a key metric in any mass mailing that indicates the number of emails that have been opened by the recipients of an email marketing campaign.

Otherwise, the open rate is the percentage of people who have opened the newsletter compared to the total number of subscribers to whom it was sent.

How to calculate the open rate?

Calculating the open rate is very simple, and it only requires a formula that you can easily solve:

As you can see, it is an equation of two variables, opened and sent emails, which are divided by each other and then must be multiplied by 100.

It should also be noted that in the case of “sent emails”, we will only take into account those that have successfully arrived in the users’ inbox, thus ignoring emails that have bounced for any reason.

Now, the “complexity” itself does not lie in the equation, but in how to determine which emails have been opened by our subscribers.

So, how can we get this relevant information?

What is considered a good open rate?

Firstly, achieving a 100% opening rate is practically impossible, given that multiple factors influence it and make it unattainable. Some of these factors are the quality of the database to which we send (whether it is double opt-in or not), the sector to which we belong, the subject of the email, the reputation of our domain, etc.

Generally speaking, a 20% open rate means the email marketing campaign was successful. Above 30% is considered a very good conversion rate.

Factors that could influence the variation in average open rates

The average open rate in email marketing can vary significantly depending on several factors. They are:

Industry or sector:

The average open rate may vary depending on the sector.

For example, non-profit organizations, educational institutions and healthcare companies may have higher open rates, while e-commerce companies and marketing agencies may experience lower open rates.

Company size:

Larger, more established companies may have higher open rates due to their reputation and brand recognition.

On the other hand, small businesses or startups may have lower open rates, as recipients may not be familiar with the brand.

Geography location:

The geographic location of recipients can influence open rates.

For example, cultural differences, business practices, and consumer preferences can affect how people interact with emails.

Sending date and time:

The time emails are sent can have a significant impact on open rates.

Generally, emails sent during the week and during office hours have a higher chance of being opened.

Subscriber List Quality:

A well-targeted, high-quality subscriber list made up of people who are genuinely interested in your brand or products increases the likelihood of higher open rates.

On the other hand, a purchased or non-segmented list can result in lower open rates.

Sending frequency:

Sending emails too frequently can cause recipient fatigue, resulting in lower open rates.

On the other hand, sending emails infrequently can cause recipients to forget about your brand, which could also negatively impact your open rate.

Content and design:

An email with an attractive design, relevant and personalized content, and a compelling subject line is more likely to be opened by recipients.

Sender score reputation:

If recipients recognize and trust the sender, they are more likely to open the email.

Therefore, maintaining a good reputation and a strong brand image is crucial to achieving higher open rates.

How to determine the number of emails opened in the open rate?

Although it may seem like a complicated task, the reality is completely different. With a quick Google search, it is more than possible to know when the emails you have sent have been received and read, and there are many methods for doing so.

From sending multimedia files or links with trackers that let you know when someone downloads these files or accesses the links, to extensions or external programs that help you add this feature directly to your email.

Of course, one point that is important to clarify is that in the vast majority of cases (if not in all cases) the measurement is not going to be precise or exact, in fact, it usually has a certain margin of error, which causes the open rate to be too high.

NOTE: in this post you can see how Mailrelay tracks your emails.

How does the open rate affect email marketing?

To answer this question, it is first necessary to know that there are many ways to analyze open rates, generally depending on a large number of factors that we personally choose.

Our intentions, interests and objectives will determine how we analyse the open rate and how it influences our email marketing campaign.

For example, depending on the type of email being sent, the purpose of the email, the audience or target to which it is directed, etc.

Now, it can be said that there are two facets of open rate to determine how it is affected in email marketing. And it is on these two that we are going to focus in this article.

The first one is the unique open rate and the other is the total open rate.

➩ Unique open rate

The unique open rate refers to the number of users who open your emails only once, or in other words, the first time a user opens your email.

That is, if 10 emails were sent, and 6 people opened them, we take those 6 people into account to calculate the unique open rate.

➩ Total open rate

In this case, it is all the times your email is opened.

Therefore, we will consider both the number of people who open your email and the number of times each person opens the same email.

In this case, if out of 10 emails, only 3 people opened it, but each of them opened it 1, 2 and 3 times, we take into account the number of people by adding the number of times each person opened it.

Thus, in this case, the total open rate will consider the 6 times that the email has been opened by these 3 people.

How important is it to differentiate between the two types of open rates?

It should be noted that the metric itself is important, however, depending on which open rate is taken into account, we can perform different analyses.

For example, let’s say you determine what your unique open rate is, in this case, what you will be able to know is basically which of your subscribers have opened the email in question.

This information, for example, will help us determine how receptive users are to our content, as well as whether more people have received and opened our emails or whether, on the contrary, this number has decreased.

Which is very important to have control over the number of users who follow us via email.

But what about the total open rate?

Well, here you can easily determine which users are more likely to open future emails, as well as know which users are going to want to consume the content you send in your emails and which ones show the most interest.

Another interesting piece of data you can obtain (rather as an indirect result of studying the open rate of your campaign) is the number of people who have used a fake email to subscribe to your blog or website.

Why would this be important?

Because you can get an idea of more or less how many people trust your blog or the method you use to reach users, information that is always good to have stored.

And based on this information, you can easily plan your next mass email campaigns to make the most of the investment you make, but we will talk about this in more depth later.

What you need to internalize at this point is that a marketing campaign, including an email marketing campaign, always needs to evolve and adapt to circumstances, and the open rate is one of the most direct methods you have to achieve this.

How many emails did you send? How many emails did your subscribers open?

The easiest way to analyze the ROI of your open rate is precisely to focus on the percentage of emails opened in relation to emails sent .

Knowing what the open rate is, you can get a relative idea of whether your investment in the campaign is paying off.

Are my emails really working? Are there people who read them?

These are the questions you need to ask yourself, after all, who wants to invest in a mass mailing campaign when your subscribers don’t read the newsletter?

If the response is yes, and, indeed, you have an audience that consistently opens the emails you send them or even opens the same email on more than one occasion, congratulations, you can take it for granted that, at least as far as your open rate is concerned, you have a positive return on investment.

Summary about the open rate

This question has a bit to do with what our objectives and intentions are, since when we analyze the results of certain metrics we always have an intention in mind that indicates the conclusions we need to draw, and in the case of the open rate it is no different.

However, there are some factors that you should consider at all times, and they are the following:

➩ Percentage high or low

As we explained before, the ROI of an email marketing open is given by the resulting percentage, so your first conclusion should always be whether you have a high or a low percentage.

But how do you know which rate is high and which rate is low?

Surprising as it may seem to you, it is very difficult and almost impossible to achieve an open rate of 50%, in fact, many companies agree that having an open rate of between 15 and 20% is a good sign of receptivity from subscribers, and it is considered excellent when it is around 25 and 30%.

But this doesn’t end here, because determining whether an open rate is high or low depends not only on the established data, but also on other factors such as the type of content or email, the sector or topic, the list of contacts used to send the newsletter, for example.

With this in mind, it is common for a hobby-themed email to achieve an open rate of around 27% on a list of subscribers who have decided to accept your emails by their own choice, while an email with offers rarely exceeds 15 or 20%.

By the way, taking advantage of the moment, lists are very important, a purchased contact list rarely reaches an open rate of more than 10%, and this is in the best of cases.

➩ How many people have decided to open your mail again

Once you know who has opened your email, you will need to know how many have decided to go through the same email again.

The total open rate is an excellent way to know how many subscribers lik your content and how many of them are likely to open future emails.

You can even find out what type of email attracts the most attention from users, since no one would open an email more than once if it is not about something important at work or a topic that really catches their attention.

This is one of the best ways to determine the interest your subscribers or contacts show towards the content you send through your campaign.

➩ Your email bounce rate

It is always good to know the bounce rate of your emails, since it is not the same if your emails arrive but are not opened, or if they don’t even reach the inbox.

If you have a very high bounce rate, you will have to completely rethink your email marketing campaign and find out why your emails are not even reaching their recipient.

Best practices in email marketing to increase the opening rate: Recommendations

Taking into account everything we have explained above, let’s look at all the factors that can enhance our business strategy.

➩ Don’t buy email lists!

This is very important if you want your email marketing campaign to be successful, as you need people to be interested in the content you send them.

And let’s be honest, how many times have you opened an email from a company or person you’ve never heard of?

Well, don’t expect someone else to do it, because believe me, there are some people who will do it, but they are the extreme minority, and a bad purchased contact list is a lousy investment with a very low open rate.

This advice can be extrapolated to when you want to get more followers on Twitter or any other social network, since buying followers will only lead to a radical drop in your engagement metrics, since you will “fatten” your community, yes,… but with fake or inactive accounts, not to mention the risk of getting caught and having your account closed.

➩ Only work with doble opt-in forms

Double opt-in is what is known as a double confirmation subscription, meaning that when a person subscribes to your newsletter or gives you the green light to send them emails in your campaigns, they will need to put in a little more effort to do so.

It may seem stupid, but it is true that no one will go through such a tedious process as giving out their email address if they are not really interested in the content you offer.

This way, you’ll ensure that those who subscribe to your content are actually interested, helping you increase your open rate.

➩ Don’t use boring or uninteresting subject lines.

The first contact a user has with your email is not the content, since the first thing they will see when entering their email is the name of the sender and the subject.

For this reason, your email subject lines must be interesting and capture the attention of users so that they will be more likely of opening them.

Mind you, I’m not saying you should overuse click bait, as this will probably cause you to lose subscribers rather than improve your open rate.

➩ Segment your list as much as possible

We don’t all like the same things, that’s an unwritten rule of society, if you like something, I don’t have to share that taste, and your users are the same.

You probably have an incredible diversity of interests and tastes on your list, so it’s a good idea to segment your list, it is recommended that you segment your list based on the interests of your users, this way you will be able to send different emails to each section of your list to match the interests of your users.

This way, you will see how you will increase your open rate.

➩ Be consistent with the sender name

If your business consists of several people, your newsletter must always be signed by the same employee.

This is why it is very important that you are consistent with your sender name, since a company that is constantly changing the sender name in its campaigns generates distrust, and this will make people stop opening your emails.

➩ Personalize the content of your emails

There are many ways to personalize the content we send in our emails, take advantage of it.

A person is much more likely to open an email where the sender addresses them personally, and these are small details that can go a long way toward achieving a good open rate.

➩ Quality content is the most important thing.

Remember that the sender name and subject line will only help you get the person to open the email, but it is the content that will dictate whether the person is actually interested in what you offer or what you have to say in it.

For this reason, it is advisable to always use quality content in your campaigns, since this is what will help you convert your open rate into profits.

And these are just some of the methods to improve the open rate of your email marketing campaign.

Remember that there is no set path to success, there are many factors that come into play, so you should gradually try new methods to improve your strategy.

Take advantage of the advice we have given you to guide you and get started.

We wish you much success in your future email marketing campaigns! And remember to never lose heart.