Open Rates: Definition, Benchmarks, and Best Practices

Open rates are a key metric to evaluate the performance of your email marketing campaigns. Learn what open rates are, how to calculate them, and discover actionable tips to improve them.

What are open rates?

Open rates are a key metric in email marketing that measure the percentage of recipients who open your emails. They give you a quick snapshot of how well your emails are capturing attention and sparking interest.

This metric is shaped by factors like your subject line, sender name, timing, and the relevance of your content. It’s a useful benchmark for assessing campaign performance and pinpointing areas for improvement.

However, open rates are just one piece of the puzzle. To get a complete view of your email campaign’s success, combine them with other metrics like click-through rates (CTR) and conversion rates.

How are open rates calculated?

Open rates aren’t 100% accurate. They rely on tracking pixels, which may not always load due to email client settings or privacy features.

Despite this, they’re a valuable metric to gauge the effectiveness of your subject lines, sender name, and email timing.

Here’s a simple formula to calculate open rates:

Open Rate = (Emails Opened / Emails Delivered) × 100

How does it work? To calculate open rates, take the number of emails that reached your recipient’s inbox (emails sent minus bounces). Then divide it by the number of recipients who opened your emails and multiply it by 100.

For example: if you send an email to 1 000 persons and 200 recipients open the email, your open rate would be (200 / 1000) x 100 = 20 %.

Why are open rates important?

Most email marketing platforms – including Mailmeteor, Mailchimp and Brevo – help you track email opens. And this is no coincidence. Here’s why open rates matter and what you can achieve by monitoring this metric:

• Open rates show how effective your subject lines, sender name, and timing are at grabbing your audience’s attention and encouraging them to engage with your email.
• Low open rates may signal an unhealthy email list with many inactive or disengaged subscribers. Cleaning your list and targeting engaged recipients can help improve performance.
• A high open rate is often the first step toward deeper interactions, such as clicks, conversions, or purchases. Without opens, your campaigns won’t have the chance to deliver their message.
• Open rates provide a quick way to evaluate how your campaigns are performing compared to industry standards, helping you refine your email marketing strategy for better results.

What is a good open rate?

The average email open rate is around 17.92%, according to Campaign Monitor. By this standard, an open rate above 15% is often considered “good”. However, the reality is more nuanced, as open rates can vary based on factors like:

Industry:

• Nonprofits and education often see higher open rates (20–30%) due to loyal and engaged audiences.
• Retail and e-commerce tend to get lower open rates (10–20%) because of the sheer volume of promotional emails competing for attention.

Email type:

• Personalized cold emails can achieve impressive open rates (40–50%) because they are highly relevant.
• Promotional emails and newsletters tend to have lower open rates (10–20%), especially if the frequency is too high.

How to improve your email open rate?

Below average open rates are not a fatality. There are proven tactics that you can use to boost engagement and increase your open rates, such as audience segmentation, A/B testing, and personalization.

Craft a powerful subject line

Your subject line is the first thing recipients see, and it plays a huge role in whether they open your email. Make it compelling, relevant, and concise.

• Use curiosity, urgency, or personalization to grab attention.
• Avoid spammy phrases like “Buy Now” or excessive punctuation.
• Keep it short (ideally under 50 characters) for better mobile readability.

Optimize email timing and frequency

Timing is everything when it comes to email. Send it too early, and it might get buried. Send it too late, and your audience could already be tuned out. Finding that perfect moment can be the difference between a message that gets opened and one that’s forgotten.

• Experiment with different days and times to discover when your audience is most likely to check their inbox.
• If you have a global audience, schedule emails to match your recipients’ local time for maximum visibility.
• Avoid sending too frequently, which can overwhelm recipients, or too infrequently, which can make them forget about you.

Segment your audience

Not all subscribers are the same, so why treat them that way? Segmenting your audience allows you to send targeted, relevant messages that resonate with each group and improve your open rates.

• Group subscribers by factors like demographics, location, or purchase history.
• Use behavioral data, such as email engagement or purchase history, to tailor your content.
• Create separate campaigns for active subscribers and re-engagement emails for those who are less active.

Personalize your message

Personalization goes beyond adding a first name to your email. It’s about crafting messages that feel tailor-made for each recipient. Customized emails generate more opens, clicks and replies than generic messages.

• Use dynamic fields to include names, locations, or other personal details in the subject line or body.
• Reference past interactions, such as previous purchases or sign-ups, to make your email more relevant.
• Address specific pain points, interests, or challenges to show that you understand their needs.

Improve your deliverability

Even the best email won’t make an impact if it doesn’t land in your recipients’ inboxes. Optimizing your deliverability ensures that your emails get seen, which can significantly improve your open rates.

• Regularly clean your email list to remove inactive addresses and use email verification tools, like our BounceShield.
• Avoid spam words, excessive capitalization, overuse of links, or misleading subject lines.
• Add some delay between your emails to mimic human activity and bypass the spam filters with our Autopilot.

A/B test your emails

Sometimes, small tweaks can make a big difference. A/B testing helps you figure out what works best for your audience. Collect valuable feedback and finetune your strategy to maximize open rates and conversions.

• Test one variable at a time, such as subject lines, email copy, or CTAs.
• Compare results to see which version performs better.
• Use insights from testing to refine your future campaigns.

FAQs – Open rates

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